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116 THE INSTRUMENTS, THE SOUNDS, THE PERFORMERS
tion as unobserved members of Nat Cole's accompanying unit; by Mary Osborne, a young North Dakota girl who bought an electric guitar, sat in with Christian and studied his technique long before he became a New York cynosure; by "Jim" Daddy" Walker, who made some remarkable records with Pete Brown in 1944 but has not been heard from since; and more recently by Kenny Burrell, a young Detroiter prominent lately in the New York recording studios.
These are the artists whose lineage goes directly back to Christian; many others, cousins once removed, have evolved from Christian, adding new technical touches. The most agile of all is Tal Farlow (heard with the Red Norvo Trio off and on, 1950-55). Unlike most modern guitarists he is self-taught, in the sense that the phonograph and Christian were his only teachers.
Through the 1940s there were a few others who, without treading directly on Christian's territory, blended his innovations with their own personal qualities. Nat Cole's original trio in 1940 had an exceptional talent m Oscar Moore, who slipped from poll-winnmg eminence (first place every year in Down Beat and Metronome, 1945-8) to rhythm-and-blues obscurity. Jimmy Shirley, with the Herman Chittison Trio, made unique use of an attachment, the <Vibrola,*> which lent his solos a semi-Hawaiian twang that should have earned him the commercial success accorded such gimmick artists as Alvino Key and Les Paul. Billy Bauer (first heard with Herman) brought some of his studies with Lennie Tristano to bear on a series of records with Tristano, Konitz and company, "Slim" Gaillard, a comedian often accepted by the more gullible of fans as a jazz musician, earned a triple distinction: he was the performer with die largest hands, the loudest and most distorted amplifier, and the least taste of all the post-Christianites.
Though most of the Christian-influenced soloists have tended toward single-note horizontal lines in their solos, the potentialities inherent in the six strings of the guitar have not been neglected. (The strings are tuned upward, starting at E a twelfth below middle C to A, D, G, B and E, a basic two-octave span.) The Lang-Kress-McDonough generation has its offspring in Carmen |
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