Charlie Sigler – 5 Desert Island Picks – Jazz Guitar Life – Jazz Guitar Life

1) Charlie Parker Quintet with Fats Navarro and Bud Powell – One Night at Birdland: This is some of the most urgent, spontaneous, creative, beautiful music ever created. The recording serves as a timeless inspiration for how far one can take their artistry. I love the trading between Parker and Fats on Street Beat, Bud Powell’s solo on Round Midnight is one of my all time favorites. Blakey’s pocket is so deep and his lock up with Curly Russell always keep me coming back to this recording.

2) Jimmy Smith and Wes Montgomery- Jimmy and Wes The Dynamic Duo: Both Jimmy and Wes sound particularly inspired throughout the entire record and it has a good feeling all around. I love hearing two of the all time greats play off of each other but also to hear where their musical personalities overlap and contrast . The record features arrangements by Oliver Nelson plus Grady Tate and Richard Davis establish a deep pocket on all the big band tracks. Grady Tate and Jimmy Smith have an iconic lock up and it’s showcased beautifully on the trio takes. Wes’s solo on Baby It’s Cold Outside is one of my favorites.

3) John Coltrane – The Classic Quartet – The Complete Impulse! Recordings: I know this one is kind of a cop out but it was too hard for me to pick one work from the group that has had the most significant impact on my life. There’s really nothing I can say that hasn’t been said already, but I can never get over the way that the relationship to this music keeps growing and growing. This band operated with the highest level of artistic, spiritual and emotional depth imaginable.

4) Donny Hathaway – Live: Donny Hathway has an incredibly powerful voice, great compositional mind and keyboard concept. The warm sound of the record and the incredible audience participation always uplift my spirits and give me a deep sense of immediacy. Also we get to hear from the great guitarists Phil Upchurch and Cornell Dupree, who pick their spots perfectly. Fred White’s snare drum and Willie Weeks’ groove (and also his solo on Voices Inside) always bring me happiness. 

5) Bobby Broom – The Way I Play: This record gave me the connection I was looking for. It was the first time I heard a contemporary guitarist present a vision of the lineage coming out of Charlie Christian, Wes and Benson that spoke to me on a visceral level and felt at home in the musical environments I was trying to navigate in Baltimore and Washington D.C. There’s so much invention, spontaneity and fire mixed with beauty, intelligence and vulnerability on this record. Just Broom’s feel alone would make this one of my favorite records of all time. I always appreciate the courage and vision it takes to develop a way of playing that’s so personal, especially in relation to the time. The chemistry within the trio is amazing, and the way that Dennis Carroll and Kobie Watkins actively engage with each other and with Broom, shifted open the way that I perceive the guitar trio format.