Published:
2013-11-14
Updated:
2013-11-14
Learning Ukulele with Curt
Johnny Smith
An extremely diverse musician, Johnny Smith was equally at home playing in the famous Birdland jazz club or sight reading scores in the orchestral pit of the New York Philharmonic. From Schoenberg to Gershwin to originals, Smith was one of the most versatile guitarists of the 1950s. Smith’s playing is characterized by closed-position chord voicings and rapidly ascending lines (reminiscent of Django, but more diatonic than chromatically-based). From those famous 1952 sides and into the 1960s he recorded for the Roost label, on whose releases his reputation mainly rests. Mosaic Records has issued the majority of them in an 8-CD set.
Main Category: Guitarists Main Instrument: Any
2013-11-14
An extremely diverse musician, Johnny Smith was equally at home playing in the famous Birdland jazz club or sight reading scores in the orchestral pit of the New York Philharmonic. From Schoenberg to Gershwin to originals, Smith was one of the most versatile guitarists of the 1950s. Smith’s playing is characterized by closed-position chord voicings and rapidly ascending lines (reminiscent of Django, but more diatonic than chromatically-based). From those famous 1952 sides and into the 1960s he recorded for the Roost label, on whose releases his reputation mainly rests. Mosaic Records has issued the majority of them in an 8-CD set.
#####Walk Don’t Run##### His most famous musical composition is the “Walk, Don’t Run”, written for a 1955 recording session as counter-melody to the chord changes of “Softly, As in the Morning Sunrise”. Another guitarist Chet Atkins covered the song. Some musicians who became The Ventures heard the Atkins version, simplified it and sped it up and made it into a big hit in 1960.