M65 Freshman, Barry Galbraith

[Boss]

I'm preparing topics for my next TrueFire course. Barry Galbraith may be my favorite guitarist. I have always loved his propulsive swing and command of voice leading.

And to top it off he was one of Guild's first featured artists in the 1950s!

I have learned so much from all the books in his series with the comping etudes being my favorite.

Most of my guitar students discover this book but often struggle with the dense notation. The book offers so much to discuss and would make a great video course.

I am accepting suggestions so reach out if you would like to see me produce a course of my demonstrating and explaining the etudes.
In the meantime please check out my three Indie Courses:

Miles Davis vol. 1: Hardbop Pioneer
Miles Davis vol. 2: Blues Innovator
Two Views of the Blues: Charlie Apicella & Jon Herington
https://truefire.com/c1736

And you can use this code for a free 7 day all access pass to Charlie Apicella's Solid Guitar:
https://truefire.com/redeem/channel?code=CHANNEL-2311 Charlie Apicella "Gone With The Wind" arr. Barry Galbraith

 

[Boss]

 

[achase4u]

Nicely done. Barry is my favorite guitarist for sure. His chord work was so concise and well conceived. I love that he never overplayed, either. I've seen him in a similar era (perhaps even the same photoshoot?) with his Gibson Byrdland. I wonder if he really exclusively played them as it mentions on some ads. Anyway, love anything B.G. related. We would all do well to study his teachings and recordings.

 

[Boss]

Right on, thanks for the message.

I’m sure you have heard Portrait of Sheila? His command of the guitar trio format backing Sheila Jordan is one of the best performances ever.

I often listen to the Jamey Aebersold books of solos and comping as records. They hold up in that light, not only as method books.

 

[achase4u]

Ok so that is freaking me out a little. Yes, I love that album. It's stunning how they left space for her voice. Many guitarists would have had trouble leaving that much "open air". Barry crushed it. And I'm freaked out because just today I did a little instagram video of his comping on the G major section of "When the world was young". Barry Galbraith "When the world was young" comping

You can hear quite a bit of squeaking on this album along with the tone he gets which makes me think at least in this instance he was using roundwounds, which is cool.

I second that on the Abersold stuff. I listen to them all the time. The solo improv book has great B.G. comping on it as well, despite his reduced ability from spinal issues by then.

 

[Boss]

Wow man, great job transcribing those.

 

[Boss]

I wrote a whole course for jazzanywhere.com where I am walking folks through a few pieces in his comping book and then tying them into my chord melody arrangements of the actual tunes.

It’s pretty extensive and might be advanced since it’s hard to gauge how fast people can work their way through any one of the pieces. But I have broken it down into small chunks. I often spend an entire hour lesson with students on just a couple two and four-bar phrases.

We probably won’t put the course up until next year. I am starting my teaching in the spring for them on my Miles Davis courses. That will be formatted as live group meetings augmented by the videos and materials I made for TrueFire a couple years ago.

Barry was a frequent member of Gil Evans’s salon in NYC when the ideas were floating around which became Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool sessions.

 

[achase4u]

Thats very cool! Small 2 to 4 bar chunks is how I like to do it. Really lets you dive in and try to see what is going on.

Did not know about the hangs at G.E.'s salon and Birth of the Cool! I knew Barry was on some of Gil's sessions but that is really interesting.

 

[Boss]

I did quite a bit of research on the early period of Miles Davis’s work when I put together my jazzanywhere.com courses. Barry was mentioned in some of the things I was reading at the time. I’m not sure if Miles says his name in his autobiography.

 

[teleharmonium]

I love the Sheila Jordan album, and especially the George Russell and related recordings he is on.

 

[achase4u]

I love the Sheila Jordan album, and especially the George Russell and related recordings he is on.

The George Russell stuff is pretty scary. Super interesting but I can't imagine having to read stuff like that. One of Barry's students said he told him George gave him the music for the whole "Jazz Workshop" album 3 days before recording. He probably could have still read it, as I hear he was one of the top readers in town. There is a story about someone, maybe Hal McKusick, finding George working in a pharmacy and asking why he was there not making records. He helped George get a new record deal or something after that. Barry and Hal would go to George's apartment for lessons and learn about the stuff he was doing, then played on his albums.