Barry Galbraith Guitar Solos (Guitar Masters)

“Barry Galbraith, aside from having been a dear friend, was one of my most important teachers. Some of what Barry taught me was indirect— a result of my having played written music he had already performed or recorded. Once, while rehearsing some impossibly difficult music of George Russell’s which Barry had recorded, I just gave up and told the conductor, ‘I can’t play this #C%?! stuff! You’ll have to call Barry.’ (Unfortunately, Barry was busy). Most other things I learned were at once more subtle and more important: how to thin out written chord voicings allowing the guitar to open up and sing and how to get more feeling and forward motion from a written single line— helping the line move forward to its arrival point. This had been done by penciling out unnecessary notes and by merely ‘suggesting’ certain others. Barry had done all of this and I was learning from it. I also learned by working with Barry— sometimes in a two-guitar setting and from talking with him. So now the learning continues . . . . Here we have this stunning collection of famously popular/standard tunes, beautifully notated in classical tradition with tablature included, just in case. This is accompanied by a audio of each piece— crystal clear performances by John Purse. The book has 13 of Barry Galbraith’s arrangements including: For All We Know; My Funny Valentine; In a Sentimental Mood; and ’Round Midnight. These are the meat-and-potatoes of a jazz musician’s repertoire. There is no excuse for not learning from all of this. Even now as I’m writing, I’m thinking about how differently and beautifully Barry harmonizes the ‘A’ phrase of In a Sentimental Mood each time it comes around. I’ve played the tune hundreds of times and never came up with anything like this. ’Round Midnight is something else again! It’s a virtuoso piece technically and harmonically, by being written in the guitar-friendly key of E minor rather than the usual E flat minor.

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