![]() At one point, after a two and a half hour session to record a one-chord song, " The Beat Goes On," Kessel is reported to have stood up and proclaimed, "Never have so many played so little for so much." He recorded with pop acts such as The Monkees and The Beach Boys and with jazz musicians Sonny Rollins and Art Tatum. ĭuring the 1960s, Kessel worked for Columbia Pictures and was a member of a band of session musicians known as The Wrecking Crew. He was the guitarist on the album Julie Is Her Name (1955) by Julie London, which includes the standard " Cry Me a River", selling a million copies and demonstrated Kessel's chordal approach to guitar. He recorded a series of albums with Ray Brown and Shelly Manne as The Poll Winners because the three of them often won polls conducted by Metronome and DownBeat magazines. After leaving the trio, he recorded several solo albums for Contemporary. He worked in Jazz at the Philharmonic and for one year in the early 1950s he was a member of the Oscar Peterson trio. In 1947, he recorded with Charlie Parker. During the day, he worked as a studio musician and at night played jazz in clubs. Soon after, he played in the bands of Charlie Barnet and Artie Shaw. ![]() He appeared in the film Jammin' the Blues, which featured Lester Young. In the early 1940s, he moved to Los Angeles, where for one year he was a member of the Chico Marx big band. Kessel gained attention because of his youth and being the only white musician playing in all African American band at black clubs. The band members nicknamed him "Fruitcake" because he practiced up to 16 hours a day. When he was 16, he started playing with the Oklahoma A&M band, Hal Price & the Varsitonians. He began his career as a teenager touring with local dance bands. His only formal musical study was three months of guitar lessons at the age of 12. Kessel's father was an immigrant from Hungary who owned a shoe shop. Kessel was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma in 1923.
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