Hi, my name is Nathan from JazzGuitar Lessons.net and you're listening to Album Deep Dives.
For this episode we will be diving into Billy Bauer's only record as a leader, called "Plectrist," released in 1956. The importance and influence of Billy Bauer in the jazz guitar world cannot be overstated. He was monumental in the development of the modern jazz guitar sound. Let's discuss his background a bit deeper in order to shed some light on the matter.
Billy was born in the Bronx in 1915. He started his musical journey playing the banjo, and transitioned to the guitar in the early 1930s. His first important gig was to play guitar for the Woody Herman's First Herd band. This band was extremely famous at the time, and all of its members went on to become renowned jazz figures in their instruments. Once the group disbanded in 1946, he joined Lenny Tristano's group.
If you haven't heard about the Tristano school of jazz, I would strongly encourage you to learn about it. Lenny Tristano was an immensely influential figure in jazz history. His playing and approach was ahead of his time, and he was one of the pioneers of the freer side of jazz that would eventually gain more force with Ornette Coleman in the 1960s. Billy Bauer became a very close associate of Tristano's and he appeared in most of his work from 1946 to 1949. Although Billy was never a student of Tristano like most of the musicians that ended up playing with him, he certainly learned some valuable lessons from him, and this period was very important in Bauer's development. Perhaps the most innovative contribution that Billy developed during this time was his comping approach. He recalls that Lenny would tell him "not to play the melody" and "not to play rhythm either". This left Billy Bauer with pretty much nothing to work with (aside from the fact that Tristano would just go in and out of functional harmony as he pleased), so he was forced to develop a new approach to comping. He started to fill in the spaces that Lenny left with small melodic phrases and chords here and there. This was the start of the developing of modern comping, and would have a huge influence in the sound of Jim Hall, and later on Larry Coryell, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Bill Frisell, and pretty much every modern jazz guitar player.
Although Billy always considered himself as a sideman, so much so that he titled his self-published autobiography "Sideman", "Plectrist" shows some extraordinary work as a leader. The band features Billy on guitar, Milt Hinton on bass, Osie Johnson on drums, and Andrew Ackers on piano. By the time this record was released (1956), Billy had already developed his own sound, and although his time with Tristano had a big influence on him, we hear something quite distinct from Lenny's thing in this record.
[music clip "It's a Blue World" 00:00 - 00:33]
The first track on this record is Forrest and Wright's "It's a Blue World". It's interesting to notice that Bauer plays chord melody throughout the entire tune, even when he has a piano player to back him up. His approach on this tune reminds me of the legendary guitarist George Van Eps. The way he is voice-leading from chord to chord, and his harmonization of almost every note he plays indicates that he had an impressive control over the fretboard. In fact, Billy took a few lessons with Allan Reuss around 1941, a former student of George Van Eps right after joining Carl Hoff's orchestra. Bauer tells that by that time, he really needed to step-up his reading because the charts were very challenging in that group. This is why he asked Reuss for help, and his lessons were based on Van Eps' harmonic method.
[music clip "It's a Blue World" 02:16 - 02:43]
The third track of the album is an original composition by Billy called "Lincoln Tunnel". Billy navigates this tune fantastically. He phrases the bebop melody almost like a horn player, adding lots of different articulations and dynamic changes. His solo shows off his deep knowledge of the bebop vocabulary, but still maintains his unique voice with the instrument. During the trading section we get a very clear example of Bauer's approach to comping. It's really interesting to hear how modern he sounds, and recognize just how much influence this innovative approach would have in the future.
[music clip "Lincoln Tunnel" 02:30 - 03:10]
On "Night Cruise", another Bauer original, we hear the great musical relationship he and the pianist Andrew Ackers developed. It's unusual to include another chordal instrument on a guitar featured record. It's quite challenging to make things sound good with piano and guitar playing together due to their very similar registers and percussive characteristics. They tend to step on one another when they play together. But Billy was quite used to trying to make things work with a piano due to his vast experience with Lenny Tristano, and this might be one of the reasons why Ackers is present in this recording. Apart from this, Billy states that he thoroughly enjoyed playing with Ackers because he accompanied him really well, never getting in his way but making him feel comfortable and supported.
[music clip "Night Cruise" 01:15 - 01:45]
Onto "Lady Estelle's Dream" which is a beautiful mid tempo tune composed by Bauer. In this tune we can hear Billy's imaginative melodies while soloing. It's also a refreshing composition due to its changes between a Latin-inspired feel and a half time swing feel. As opposed to Billy's solo over "It's a Blue World" (which features a similar tempo) he plays an almost completely single note solo. We can hear just how original Bauer's playing was in this format. He is incredibly melodic, and his phrasing feels so free and modern. He keeps shaping his lines with a slightly laid back straight eights feel, even during the swing passages.
[music clip "Lady Estelle's Dream 01:50-02:21]
This trio's rendition of Cole Porter's "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To" might be the most bop-oriented track on the record. Billy sounds really comfortable and relaxed during his solo, even when the tune is played at a really fast swing tempo. You can really hear Charlie Christian's influence in his lines, but it's also clear that Bauer never intended to emulate Charlie. This track also reminds me of Jim Hall's version of this tune on his 1975 album "Concierto". Even though Billy's version is a lot more bop-oriented, their melodic approaches and sound are similar, and we can clearly hear Bauer's influence on Jim Hall.
[music clip "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To" 01:11 - 01:40]
Bauer's arrangement of "Lullaby of the Leaves" by Petkere and Young is quite fascinating. It starts with 4 bars of an ingenious solo guitar counterpoint where Billy plays a chromatic line against a fixed pitch. Billy then plays the A sections using octaves brilliantly. It is important to remember that perhaps the most famous proponent of the use of octaves on guitar, Wes Montgomery, didn't appear on record until 1960, and although this musical resource had been used before by Django and Johnny Smith, it was still pretty innovative at the time. Finally, Billy harmonizes the melody of the bridge to create a wonderful contrast in texture.
[music clip "Lullaby of the Leaves" 00:00 - 00:45]
To end the record, we get the treat of listening to Billy Bauer's exploratory spirit in his original composition "Blue Mist". It's a wonderfully complex tune with obscure chord substitutions and a varied range of textural techniques. He strums and arpeggiates chords, uses harmonics, and plays some contrapuntal lines to maintain the listener on the edge of their seat wondering what's coming next. It is an extraordinary example of Billy's love and understanding of complex harmony together with his melodic imagination and originality.
[music clip "Blue Mist" 00:00 - 00:37]
Unfortunately, as said before, "Plectrist" would be Billy Bauer's only recording as a leader, but there is still a vast list of recordings where he was featured. If you are interested in exploring more about him, I would recommend listening to the Lenny Tristano albums where he appeared: "Wow", "Live at Birdland", and "Intuition", which is an extraordinarily important record in jazz history, as many historians consider it to be the first ever free jazz recording. Apart from these, I would recommend to check out "Lee Konitz with Warne Marsh", his recording with two of the most renowned jazz musicians that came out of the Tristano "school".
Billy Bauer's innovations in the jazz guitar world are profound and have influenced virtually every modern jazz guitarist. His different approach to comping, his unique approach and modification of the bebop language, as well as his departure from the traditional swing feel are just a few examples of his contributions. Apart from that, Billy dedicated his later life to pedagogy, teaching not only guitar students, but sharing his knowledge with a wide range of instrumentalists due to his universal pedagogic approach. He most notably taught rock guitar legend Joe Satriani. Billy passed away in June 2005, but his name will forever be inscribed in jazz guitar history.
Thanks for listening to Album Deep Dives and exploring Billy Bauer's music with me. Once again, I'm Nathan Corr, and I've been your host for this episode. You can check out other episodes in the Jazz Guitar Mastery program. Until next time, keep your ears open, and happy shedding!
