Les Paul had such a staggeringly huge influence
over the way American popular music sounds today that many tend
to overlook his significant impact upon the jazz world. Before
his attention was diverted toward recording multi-layered hits
for the pop market, he made his name as a brilliant jazz guitarist
whose exposure on coast-to-coast radio programs guaranteed a wide
audience of susceptible young musicians. Heavily influenced by
Django Reinhardt at first, Paul eventually developed an astonishingly
fluid, hard-swinging style of his own, one that featured extremely
rapid runs, fluttered and repeated single notes, and chunking
rhythm support, mixing in country & western licks and humorous
crowd-pleasing effects. No doubt his brassy style gave critics
a bad time, but the gregarious, garrulous Paul didn't much care;
he was bent on showing his audiences a good time.
Though he couldn't read music, Paul had a magnificent ear and
innate sense of structure, conceiving complete arrangements
entirely in his head before he set them down track by track
on disc or tape. Even on his many pop hits for Capitol in the
late '40s and early '50s, one can always hear a jazz sensibility
at work in the rapid lead solo lines and bluesy bent notes --
and no one could close a record as suavely as Les. And of course,
his early use of the electric guitar and pioneering experiments
with multi-track recording, solid-body guitar design, and electronic
effects devices have filtered down to countless jazz musicians.
Among the jazzers who acknowledge his influence are George Benson,
Al DiMeola, Stanley Jordan (whose neck-tapping sound is very
reminiscent of Paul's records), Pat Martino, and Bucky Pizzarelli.
By 1937, Paul had formed a trio, and the following year, he
moved to New York and landed a featured spot with Fred Waring's
Pennsylvanians, which gave him nationwide exposure through their
broadcasts. That job ended in 1941 shortly after he was nearly
electrocuted in an accident during a jam session in his Queens
basement. After a long recovery period and more radio jobs,
Paul moved to Hollywood in 1943, where he formed a new trio
that made several V-Discs and transcriptions for MacGregor (some
available on Laserlight). As a last-minute substitute for Oscar
Moore, Paul played in the inaugural Jazz at the Philharmonic
concert in Los Angeles on July 2, 1944; his witty chase sequence
with Nat Cole on "Blues" and fleet work elsewhere
(now on Verve's Jazz at the Philharmonic: The First Concert)
are the most indelible reminders of his prowess as a jazzman.
Later that year, Paul hooked up with Bing Crosby, who featured
the Trio on his radio show, sponsored Les' recording experiments,
and recorded six sides with him, including a 1945 number one
hit, "It's Been a Long, Long Time." On his own, Paul
also made several records with his Trio for Decca from 1944
to 1947, including jazz, country, and Hawaiian sides, and backed
singers like Dick Haymes, Helen Forrest, and the Andrews Sisters.
Meanwhile, in 1947, after experimenting in his garage studio
and discarding some 500 test discs, Paul came up with a kooky
version of "Lover" for eight electric guitars, all
played by himself with dizzying multi-speed effects. He talked
Capitol Records into releasing this futuristic disc, which became
a hit the following year. Alas, a bad automobile accident in
Oklahoma in January 1948 put Les out of action again for a year
and a half; as an alternative to amputation, his right arm had
to be set at a permanent right angle suitable for guitar playing.
After his recovery, he teamed up with his soon-to-be second
wife, a young country singer/guitarist named Colleen Summers
whom he renamed Mary Ford, and reeled off a long string of spectacular
multi-layered pop discs for Capitol, making smash hits out of
jazz standards like "How High the Moon" and "Tiger
Rag." The hits ran out suddenly in 1955, and not even a
Mitch Miller-promoted stint at Columbia from 1958 to 1963 could
get the streak going again. After a bitter divorce from Ford
in 1964, a gig in Tokyo the following year, and an LP of mostly
remakes for London in 1967, Paul went into semi-retirement from
music.
Aside from a pair of wonderfully relaxed country/jazz albums
with Chet Atkins for RCA in 1976 and 1978 and a blazing duet
with DiMeola on "Spanish Eyes" from the latter's 1980
Splendido Hotel CD, Paul was long absent from the record scene
(some rumored sessions for Epic in the '90s have not materialized).
However, a 1991 four-CD retrospective, The Legend & the
Legacy, contained an entire disc of 34 unreleased tracks, including
a breathtaking electrified tribute to the Benny Goodman Sextet,
"Cookin'." More significantly, Paul began a regular
series of Monday night appearances at New York's Fat Tuesday's
club in 1984 (from 1996, Les held court at the Iridium club
across from Lincoln Center), attended by visiting celebrities
and fans for whom he became an icon in the '80s.
In 2005 American Made World Played by Les Paul & Friends
was issued. Unlike most albums featuring "famous"
friends, this contained some exceptional music. The list of
contributors was impressive: Keith Richards, Buddy Guy, Eric
Clapton, Richie Sambora, Jeff Beck, and even a sampled Sam Cooke.
One of the highlights was a duet with Steve Miller (who Les
Paul had babysat for in 1950) on "Fly Like an Eagle."
Although arthritis slowed Paul's playing down in his later years,
he continued to perform, with his repertoire largely unchanged
from the '30s and '40s, practically up to his death due to complications
from pneumonia in 2009 at age 94. At any given gig, one could
still learn a lot from the Wizard of Waukesha. A remarkably
gifted and farsighted guitarist, Paul’s contribution to
popular music must inevitably center upon his pioneering work
on multi-tracking and his creation of the solid-body guitar.
It would be sad, however, if his efforts in these directions
wholly concealed his considerable abilities as a performer.
