Talmage Holt Farlow (June 7, 1921[2] – July 25, 1998)[3] was an American jazz guitarist. He was nicknamed "Octopus" because of how his large, quick hands spread over the fretboard.[citation needed]
Early life and education
Talmage Holt Farlow was born in Greensboro, North Carolina.[2] He taught himself how to play guitar, which he started when he was 22 years old.[4] He learned chord melodies by playing a mandolin tuned like a ukulele. He said playing the ukulele was the reason he used the higher four strings on the guitar for the melody and chord structure, with the two bottom strings for bass counterpoint, which he played with his thumb. His only professional training was as an apprentice sign painter. He requested the night shift so he could listen to big band standards on the shop radio. He listened to Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, and Eddie Lang.[citation needed]
Career
Music
Farlow’s career was inspired by hearing Charlie Christian playing electric guitar with the Benny Goodman band. He stated he made his own electric guitar because he could not afford to purchase one.[citation needed]
Farlow employed artificial harmonics and tapped his guitar for percussion, creating a flat, snare drum sound or a hollow backbeat like the bongos.[4] His large, quick hands earned him the nickname "The Octopus".[citation needed]
He caught the public's attention in 1949 when he was in a trio with Red Norvo and Charles Mingus.[2] In 1953, he was a member of the Gramercy Five led by Artie Shaw, and two years later he led his own trio with Vinnie Burke and Eddie Costa in New York City. After getting married in 1958, he partially retired[4] and settled in Sea Bright, New Jersey, returning to a career as a sign painter.[2] He continued to play occasional dates in local clubs. In 1962 the Gibson Guitar Corporation, with Farlow's participation, produced the "Tal Farlow" model. In 1976, Farlow started recording again. A documentary about him was released in 1981.[4]
Later career and death
Later in his career Tal performed as a member of Great Guitars with a DVD released in 2005 after his death.[1]
Steve Rochinski notes, "Of all the guitarists to emerge in the first generation after Charlie Christian, Tal Farlow, more than any other, has been able to move beyond the rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic vocabulary associated with the early electric guitar master. Tal's incredible speed, long, weaving lines, rhythmic excitement, highly developed harmonic sense, and enormous reach (both physical and musical) have enabled him to create a style that clearly stands apart from the rest."[5] Where guitarists of his day combined rhythmic chords with linear melodies, Farlow placed single notes together in clusters, varying between harmonically enriched tones. The music historian Stuart Nicholson stated that "In terms of guitar prowess, it was the equivalent of Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile."[6]
George Wein, George Wein's Newport All-Stars (Atlantic, 1969)
Mary Lou Williams, The London Sessions Original Vogue Masters (BMG, 1997)
Notes and references
Notes
^Ed Fuerst (aka Ed Furst; né Edward Louis Fuerst; 1912–1994) was a second generation insurance broker – born and raised in Manhattan and educated at Cornell – and a jazz lover who promoted and invested in jazz musicians, including Gene Williams. He also had managed George Shearing. The above two recordings were at his apartment in Manhattan.
^ abcdRobinson, J. Bradford; Kernfeld, Barry (2002). Kernfeld, Barry (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz. Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). New York: Grove's Dictionaries Inc. p. 740. ISBN1-56159-284-6.
^Rochinski, Steve (1994). The Jazz Style of Tal Farlow: The Elements of Bebop Guitar Hal Leonard.
^Stuart Nicholson, "Axe of the Apostles," Wire, September 1990, p. 72
