First Four Albums

Any Jazz guitar fan is going to want to pick up this nicely-priced 2-CD import, which offers the first four albums Barney cut for Contemporary back in the early and mid '50s: Easy Like, Plays Standards, to Swing or Not to Swing and Music to Listen to Barney Kessel By, all of which brought the influence of Charlie Christian into the bebop era. Among Barney's sidemen are Shelly Manne, Bud Shank, Harry "Sweets" Edison and Bill Perkins; these are among the finer records to emerge from the '50s West Coast scene.