…a D.C. guitarist enters the Bossa story.
Guitarist Charlie Byrd was a fixture on the Washington D.C.-area music scene for almost fifty years. He was a versatile musician who performed and recorded a wide range of repertoire and is best remembered for the role he played in introducing and popularizing bossa nova in the United States.
His unique style had many influences––his “down-home” musical upbringing in Chuckatuck, Virginia; his encounter with the legendary guitarist Django Reinhardt in Paris during his World War II tour-of-duty; his settling in New York after the war where he studied and played with local jazz groups and became acquainted with many Cuban musicians; his move to Washington, D.C., in 1950 where he temporarily changed his musical focus to study classical guitar with Sophocles Papas; and the months he spent in Italy during 1954 studying with Andres Ségovia.
After Byrd’s return from Italy, he formed his jazz trio and began performing at local clubs in Washington, D.C. His earliest trios featured bassist Keter Betts (1928–2005) and drummers Buddy Deppenschmidt (1936–) and Bertell Knox. During 1958, the Charlie Byrd Trio with Betts and Knox, appeared on WMAL-TV’s Jazz Recital show hosted by Felix Grant. From 1957 to 1967, his trio performed regularly at the Showboat Lounge in Washington, and beginning in 1973, at the Maryland Inn’s King of France Tavern in Annapolis. Other local venues included the Showboat II in Silver Spring, Maryland, Charlie’s Georgetown, and Blues Alley. Byrd’s brother Joe (Gene) Byrd became the trio’s bassist after Keter Betts left the group in the early 1960s. Other drummers included Bill Reichenbach (1923–2008), Wayne Phillips, and, for nearly twenty years, drummer/vibraphonist Chuck Redd (1958–).
Although Byrd participated in several international tours sponsored by the U.S. State Department, it was the 12-week tour of South America in 1961 that changed the course of his career and the global music scene. He became intrigued by this new Brazilian music and began incorporating it into his repertoire. The 1962 Verve release, Jazz Samba, recorded by Stan Getz and Byrd in Washington, played a key role in introducing and igniting the bossa nova craze in the United States.
Following Jazz Samba, Byrd convinced Orin Keepnews at Riverside to produce three bossa nova albums: Latin Impressions (1962), Bossa Nova Pelos Passaros (1962), and Once More! Charlie Byrd’s Bossa Nova (1963).
Bryd maintained ties with Brazilian music throughout his career and was honored as a Knight of the Rio Branco by the Brazilian government. He appeared on nearly 100 recordings, including several with the Great Guitars group that he formed with Herb Ellis and Barney Kessell. Before his death, Byrd made a gift of his personal collection of manuscripts, scores, published music, recordings, and personal papers documenting his career, to the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.