Something Tender

LP United Artists Jazz 15033

This music will not kick you out of bed, but rather make you want to stay if you happen to listen in the morning. Two guitars and a horn playing in a style that belongs to no school, just making pleasant music and demonstrating good interplay and profound understanding.

George Barnes (1921–1977) is the youngest member, and he fell under the spell of Charlie Christian’s guitar playing. His string mate Carl Kress (1907–1955) had a long career, starting as a banjoist. When he changed to guitar in the late 1920s, he kept the banjo’s 4-string tenor tuning and just enjoyed having two bass strings to work with as well. Even if he, like in the case of Barnes, plays electric guitar, he never played with a plectrum, always with the fingers only.

Bud Freeman, then, is the great tenor sax player that should need no further presentation.

I came to think about something regarding him that has nothing at all to do with this record.

In the 70s, I was at a rehearsal, and I had read somewhere that Bud Freeman, Ruby Braff, and some others of the usual suspects had a concert the same Saturday evening in Helsingborg, a nearby town. I suggested to the guys that we ought to go there and check it out.

When we came, we realized that something had gone wrong with the publicity, a thing that happens every now and then, so it was only my bunch of five, six people, and maybe three others at the concert. But they gave us what they had, and I think that they all got inspired by the playing of Lennart Nilsson, a local blind piano player who was a phenomenon.

This LP is an example of records that I borrowed in my teens from an older friend and recorded on reel-to-reel tape. I was happy to find a copy only recently.