Found on the web, Jimmy Wyble 'live' at Stella's in Spokane back in March of '08, these 15 Etudes should be a 'live' album but be that as it may, enjoy as Mr Wyble just passed away on 16 January just a week shy of his 87th birthday! We'll miss ya Jimmy - thanks for all the great music and for being such a kind soul.
Jimmy was very instigative in my becoming a Jazz Guitarist although he was quite unaware as I struggled with my Dad's big Epiphone guitar to try to copy some of Jimmy's hot Bebop licks on his old Bob Wills 78's of tunes like Roly Poly and Texas Playboy Rag - the latter was my first song that I played all the way thru when I was almost 15 years old. That was in 1970, I was a Freshman in High School, the Viet Nam war was still going. I didn't have a girlfriend or a car or a job. Everybody I knew was partying after the football games, getting high, getting drunk and getting laid, but I stayed home and played guitar in my bedroom by myself.
That first song opened doors of music for me that has never stopped expanding! The next week I ripped thru Jimmy and his picking partner Cameron Hill's twin guitar intro licks of Roly Poly and then plowed thru Jimmy's solo. I ripped thru one Wills record after another, then went after all the other music I could get my hands on. Now after over 40 years playing the guitar there aren't many styles or genres I haven't tackled, but Jazz is my forte!
Looking back it's clear that my fingers were made to play Jimmy Wyble's style of Bebop and my little mind just wrapped around that sound so naturally. To this day it's still the same sound and musical mindset that I play from when I get a solo in a band situation. In many ways Jimmy was one of my biggest influences - one of them, that's for sure, along with my Dad who was a Wyble fanatic as well as a big fan of both Eldon Shamblin and Junior Barnard, the two other great Texas Playboys guitarists Bob Wills had.
All these guys were my musical foundation just like they were Dad's, as he had grown up in Oklahoma where he knew them and even played with them. I was enamoured with Eldon's smooth chords laced with Swing, Junior's grit and growl of his hot electric Blues and Jimmy's HOT Bebop, they all played a part.
Dad was a Jimmy Bryant fan too having known and played with him after WWII in California and was one of the few guitarists who could keep up with Bryant's blinding speed, and surefooted execution. In fact they played HOT twin guitar leads on gigs at a club in North Hollywood on many of those old Bob Wills fiddle tunes which they arranged for guitar, i.e. 'Twinkle Star', 'Lonestar Rag', 'Beaumont Rag' etc as Bryant was a fiddle player before the War and had fiddled all those tunes. He switched to guitar in the Army and took to it like a duck takes to water - sorta like I did.
I soon took the speed part of Bryant's playing and added it to my quiver of techniques I was developing for a style of my own. I don't concentrate on playing fast any more as it was just a phase I went thru which helped develope my timing, but I still have an uncanny ability to play very fast to this day. Not as fast as Jimmy though. I don't thing anyone could keep up with him, unless it was my Dad and Ritchie Blackmore who I am told used to rip thru Bryant's Capitol 78's playing along note for note in his garage as a teenager in England. Bryant's other competition speedwise was his longtime nemesis Hank Garland who could "out Bop" Jimmy Bryant hands down, with a blinding speed to match and a FAT tone that was killer. Ironically, BOTH of these greats were highly infleunced by Jimmy Wyble! Neither of them had what Wyble had.
In many ways Wyble was heir apparent to Charlie Christian's throne, which I have to say would have to be shared by Mary Osborne who carried Charlie's torch with her Christian-esque approach as did Jimmy even more than Barney Kessel. Sadly all these greats are gone! Where are the GREAT guitar players of today? I can only think of a couple in this league, both I count as friends, Clint Strong and Doug MacDonald - BOTH are HOT players, great Beboppers, with tons of great licks birthed from sweating thru all the styles, with a sound all their own. And of course they are BIG Wyble fans!
Regardless of what I have added to the mix, in my own playing Jimmy Wyble's playful Bop lines always infect my approach and for that I am grateful!
Here's another very recent photo of Jimmy:
James Otis Wyble January 25, 1922 Port Arthur, Texas - January 16, 2010 Altadena, CA
RIP Jimmy! - the link is dead!
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