Charlie Byrd: Great guitarist whose status as a jazzman had often been questioned

Guitarist Charlie Byrd. (Courtesy)

Guitarist Charlie Byrd was an American guitar virtuoso who made many recordings of enduring impact in jazz, blues and classical genres. He captured the lively expressiveness and rhythmic forms of jazz and blues with superb assurance and taste. Byrd liked playing unamplified guitar with the straight-on, 1930s swing, with considerable classical touch, too, and injected that classicism in an unpretentious way. And the blues he played were country-inspired with a personal, deeply felt expressionism.

Byrd, who was born in Suffolk, Virginia, in 1925, made a series of terrific recordings including Jazz Recital (1957), Jazz Samba (a 1962 collaboration with saxophonist Stan Getz), Blue Byrd (1979), Hollywood Byrd (1967), Tambu (1973), Brazilian Soul (1981), Isn't It Romantic? (1984), My Inspiration (1999) and For Louis (2000).