Barney Kessel: “How to Prepare for a Gig”

On Practicing, Warming Up, and Overcoming Jitters

During his teens Barney Kessel jammed with his hero Charlie Christian and played in Oklahoma swing bands. Moving to Los Angeles in 1942, he became a first-call studio guitarist and played bop in nightclubs. As the 1940s and 1950s progressed, he performed and recorded influential jazz with Artie Shaw, Bennie Goodman, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, and the Oscar Peterson Trio, to name a few. He was voted the number-one guitarist in DownBeat, Metronome, Melody Maker, and Esquire polls. He recorded several albums as a leader and saw his name attached to a Kay guitar. He turned in one of his most iconic performances in Julie London’s million-selling “Cry Me a River.”

During the 1960s Kessel’s pop sensibilities led to his becoming a charter member of the Wrecking Crew. As part of this elite studio ensemble, he played on hits by Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke, the Monkees, Sonny & Cher, the Beach Boys, and many artists produced by Phil Spector. In the 1970s Barney swung back to jazz, playing solo and alongside Herb Ellis and Charlie Byrd in the Great Guitars. From 1961 through 1974, Gibson sold Barney Kessel signature guitars.

In 1978, on my first day at Guitar Player magazine, I was appointed editor of Barney’s column. For a few years after that, Barney and I communicated on a monthly basis. Outspoken and always ready to help, he was a veritable font of jazz history and guitar wisdom. In addition to what he penned for the magazine, he shared his knowledge by giving seminars, authoring music lessons and books, and filming instructional videos. In his mid-60s, he was still playing live gigs around the world. I asked Barney if he’d share his views on how musicians can best prepare for gigs. Here’s a transcript of that July 22, 1986, conversation.

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If you have a show at night, will you pick up a guitar and practice during the day?

Yeah. I usually practice every day, and I hardly ever practice over 45 minutes at a time. This is what I try to do, but if I don’t do it, I don’t feel dejected or spank my wrists or anything like that. I’ve kind of got a blanket rule that I try to practice 45 minutes three times a day—if I’m working. If I’m not working, I try to practice five times. If it doesn’t come up to the 45 minutes, then I try to think of playing in short ten-minute or even five-minute bursts. The main thing I focus on is not going too long without the guitar in my hand.

What do you normally do when you practice?

Various things. It all depends on where I’m at. For instance, I have various exercises that I’ve either learned from violin books or that I’ve learned for myself just through experience. In other words, it’s what the need is right now. It may be that I just need to get my right hand moving or it may be that I need to stretch my left hand. It may be that I need to practice in terms of strength or coordination between the two hands. I’ve got a whole bunch of exercises that maybe I haven’t done in a long time, so I’ll reach back and do one of those.

One form of practicing is to practice in a way to maintain what I’ve got. Now, I’m not speaking of improvising. I never practice improvising. In a way, if I were to practice improvising all through the day, then by the time I’m playing at night it’s kind of spent. Then I’d just be playing from reflex action. I’d be playing because I know how to play, not because it’s steaming up in me and I can’t wait to get to the thing to play. But if I don’t improvise as I practice, then it kind of builds up like pressure in a pressure cooker and I can’t wait to get to the job.

I do everything except improvise. For instance, if I had just made up a new song or made up an arrangement of a song that I’ve learned to play and it involves chords, I might be playing that song over and over because it’s new to me. I know how I want it to go, but I haven’t played it enough to have it really under my fingers. I may play the song, but I still won’t improvise on it. And the whole idea behind that is that there’s no way to sit down and play at night in a spontaneous way and have it real fresh unless you kind of psyche yourself out in such a way that it comes out fresh. I noticed years ago that if I’d sit and just jam all day, I’d play at night but it doesn’t have this thing like it’s eager to jump out of the pressure cooker.

How do you prepare yourself during the last two hours before going onstage?

I do very little in that way, except to be very relaxed. I might read some poetry. I used to drink two glasses of wine with my meal, and if I was playing at a place I might have a glass of wine at intermission. That is not a problem in any way, and I’ve never had any whiskey in my life. But I’ve found that when I’m playing, it’s better if I don’t have anything to drink during intermission except water. It’s this simple: I have more control and awareness without it.