Barney Kessel grew up in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and got hooked on guitar after hearing Charlie Christian, the guy who basically invented the idea of the electric guitar as a serious solo instrument in jazz. Kessel actually met Christian as a teenager, and you can hear that lineage all over his playing — clean single-note lines, a swing feel that never gets muddy, chords that land exactly where they need to. He wasn't trying to reinvent the guitar. He was trying to play it as well as it could possibly be played, and he mostly succeeded.

By the '50s he had one foot in jazz clubs and the other in recording studios, and honestly the studio work is a huge part of the story. Kessel became one of the most called-upon guitarists in Los Angeles, playing on pop records, film sessions, and just about anything that needed a guitarist who could read anything and nail it in one take. That kind of versatility doesn't always get you remembered as a jazz artist, but it paid the bills and kept him working constantly for decades.

The jazz side of his career is best represented by the Poll Winners trio he formed with Ray Brown on bass and Shelly Manne on drums — three guys who, as the name suggests, kept winning down beat and Metronome polls on their instruments. The Poll Winners (1957) is a great entry point: relaxed, swinging, no wasted motion, three musicians who clearly enjoy playing with each other. It's West Coast jazz at its most approachable — nothing avant-garde happening, just excellent musicianship and good taste.

He also spent time with Oscar Peterson's trio in the early '50s, which tells you something about how highly other musicians rated him — Peterson didn't hire guitarists who couldn't keep up. Kessel's tone was warm, his time was rock solid, and he had this way of making bebop lines sound conversational rather than showy. A stroke in the '90s ended his playing career, which is a rough way for a guy with that much technique to go out, but by then he'd already put in the work. If you want to understand what a truly complete jazz guitarist sounds like — someone equally comfortable swinging behind a singer or trading solos with a piano trio — Kessel is as good a place to start as any.