Guitar by Randy Buckner
Jazz Renaissance Quintet - George Barnes
Wednesday, September 4, 2019 by Randy Buckner | Vinyl Records
Here’s a must-have jazz guitar album, “The Jazz Renaissance Quintet: Movin’ Easy,” with George Barnes as the leader on the date. Musicians are:
- George Barnes - Guitar
- Hank D’Amico - Clarinet
- Billy Bauer - Rhythm Guitar
- Jack Lesberg - Bass
- Cliff Leeman - Drums
The album lives up to the description on the cover: “Done with finesse and good taste, accenting dexterity, skill and clever arrangements by George Barnes.” This is a tasteful and swinging Space-Age Pop era recording you definitely need in your collection.
Barnes is, without a doubt, my favorite jazz guitarist - I never get tired of listening to his recordings. In the 70s, my dad introduced me to Barnes’ music via his 1957 ”Guitar in Velvet” record on the Grand Award Records label. As of now, I own 23 George Barnes albums, without a badly-performed recording in the bunch.
I love Barnes’ arrangements on “Movin’ Easy” - he wrote very interesting and swinging interplay between the instruments. It wasn’t just another “Let’s get together and jam, and hope we come up with something useful” type of session, which not all guitarists can pull off. However, Barnes demonstrated this ability quite beautifully on his Concord albums of the mid-70s. This record has one of the few performances of “Misty” I like, because the song swings. Too many people play the song so slow it starts pedaling backwards.
What I like about Barnes’ style is his use of clarinet-influenced arpeggios, blues riffs, and his ability to swing the way Fred Astaire danced. George was a tasteful and elegant guitarist throughout his career.
Here’s a link to the Facebook page hosted by his daughter, Alexandra Barnes Leh:
