A New York City Statesman of the Guitar, Chris Flory

JGT contributor Joe Barth talks to one of the mainstays in the New York City jazz guitar scene, Chris Flory.

Chris was born in 1953 in the city but also lived upstate for some of his childhood and later attended Hobart College in Geneva, New York. A fun fact about Chris is that he listened to the best jazz record albums while babysitting the children of the great jazz pianist/arranger Gil Evans.  

JB:  You were born in New York City and probably fell in love with the guitar when the Beatles came. You were deeply impacted when you saw Jimi Hendrix live as a high schooler. Talk about that.

CF:  I saw Hendrix four times, all when I was fourteen and fifteen of age and already playing in local bands. It was absolutely thrilling and life-changing. I saw other great rock/blues acts in those years— The Who and Zappa, both at arena concerts, and The Blues Project, Sly, and BB King, all at Hobart College. I MET BB after the concert and was even allowed to try his guitar! There were also great local cover/bar bands with excellent guitarists whom I idolized and imitated— this was all a pretty fertile learning environment!

JB:  What inspired you to play jazz guitar?

CF:  I got seriously interested in jazz guitar at around age sixteen. My family had moved to Providence, RI, and I had become friends with saxophonist Scott Hamilton. He exposed me to all kinds of blues and jazz that I had never heard before. I was also tired of the rock-band-w-vocals thing and maybe looking for something beyond pentatonic virtuosity. So, hearing that Charlie Christian Minton’s album was the perfect start for a long journey.

---

JB:  To you, what are three of the most influential jazz guitar albums, and why they influenced you? 

 CF:  Charlie Christian’s  Minton’s sessions (what we called “the red Charlie Christian album” in my youth): I appreciated the drive and fluidity of his sound and lines, and I immediately started trying to copy them. His approach to time basically set the standard for what I aspired to.

 Next, Nat Cole Trio Trio Days, Capitol Records in the 1940s: There is an iconic Oscar Moore solo on “Body and Soul” that I love. Oscar’s sound and ability to blend 4/4 comping, accent comping, and single note playing with Nat’s playing was so instructive for me, then and now as well.

Then, Bill Jennings’ Glide On Prestige Records in the early ‘60s. Bill Jennings had a sound and attack that really influenced me in my younger days. In my opinion, he also had a stronger link to true blues guitar playing than so many other jazz guitarists.

JB:  What did you appreciate about your studies with Tiny Grimes?

 CF:  I really appreciated the significance of being able to go to Tiny Grimes for lessons, but it didn’t work out as an ongoing thing. The first lesson was great, just playing along with him by rote on blues, doing what he did (and drinking gin and Fresca at 11AM in his Harlem apartment). The second lesson was less focused— Tiny had some problems at that point in his life.

I found a more “mainstream” teacher in Midtown named Carl Thompson— I studied with him for about nine months, learning basic scales, some really good sets of chord voicings, and basic theory, as well as getting the beginnings of a basic repertoire of standards and bop tunes. 

JB:  Talk briefly about the work you did with saxophonist Scott Hamilton and his impact on you as a musician. 

CF:  My friendship and musical relationship with Scott Hamilton were as important to my musical development as any lessons. He was a musical mentor, from our teenage years on. I was in his quartet/quintet from 1976, when we first came down from RI to NYC, until 1991 or so. I’m on many of his earlier Concord albums (including joint projects with Ruby Braff, Flip Phillips, and Maxine Sullivan), and I did multiple tours of Europe and Japan with that group. My own first two records as leader were on Concord— a direct result of being in Scott’s group. We are close friends to this day, even though he lives in Europe. 

---

JB:  I understand you worked with the Benny Goodman sextet.  Talk about that experience.

CF:  Working in the Benny Goodman Sextet was a great experience. My first concert with Benny was in 1977, and the peak of doing dates for him was about 1981-’82— and especially a European tour in July ’82. It was really high-level playing and very exciting. Benny is kind of responsible for me getting the Gibson L7 that I still play 40 years later. I did Sextet dates until 1983, then Benny had a heart issue that curtailed his performing for about a year. When he resumed playing, his Big Band was reassembled, and it is only by chance that the one date I did with the Benny Goodman Orchestra was his last— in 1986.

---

JB:  Talk about your work with vocalist Judy Carmichael.

CF:  I had a long musical relationship with Judy Carmichael. BTW, she is first a pianist and only a vocalist in the last 10-15 years. I did some great international touring with her— China and Singapore for the US State Dept. in the ‘90s and multiple years of doing a jazz festival in Brazil, 2006-2014. Plus, decades of dates throughout the US. She is a great performer and a hard worker.

JB:  Some of my favorite albums are Rosemary Clooney’s for Concord Records.  On those, you worked with fellow guitarist Ed Bickert.  Talk about working with Ed.

CF:  I was only on that one Irving Berlin Concord album with Rosemary Clooney. I knew Ed Bickert a bit, but I was mainly hired for the date to play 4/4 rhythm guitar. It was a top-shelf recording date, all super professional. Gus Johnson was the drummer, so great! They threw me a half-chorus of solo on “Cheek To Cheek.…… It still sounds OK to me.     

JB: I love what you do on the rendition of that song.  So, is The Chris Flory Quintet Featuring Scott Hamilton your newest CD? Tell us about it.

CF:  Sadly, my newest is the second Arbors CD, the one with Scott Hamilton on it. We are now in kind of a “pay to play” era of recordings, and I have been reluctant to commit to self-financing a project, but I plan to do just that as soon as I can afford it, and I’ve got stuff to say. But for now, I’m very proud of both of those Arbors CDs— the first one with Mike LeDonne on organ, plus horns (For You, 2007) and the 2012 one with Scott. It was a great reunion project, with my own typical rhythm section plus Scott, who can record so effortlessly and naturally. I was especially proud of our quintet rendition of “After Hours.”

 JB:  Tell us about what you love about the Gibson L7 guitar you play.

 CF:  Well, my blonde Gibson L7 (1948) is, at this point, like an extension of me— my hands, my mind, I guess my heart. But I also fuss a lot with getting the proper amplified sound. It used to be with some sort of Fender Deluxe, but now I can sound maybe more like “myself” through my AER. I also still have my ‘60s Gibson ES-150, which I use for dates involving flying— but, man, I’m just over flying with guitars in this century— it sucks! I’ve done some overseas things lately (Mexico, Argentina) where part of the deal was I just use the guitar that was there and provided for me! 

JB:  New York is a town with hundreds of good guitarists, you’ve been there for over forty years, so what’s the best advice you’d give younger guitarists for building a career in music?

CF:  The skill level of the many young guitarists that show up here is VERY high. I don’t know if I could deal with that level of competition; it was different 45 years ago. But “building a career in music” is not something I set out consciously to do— more, I worked very hard at refining something I loved to do without prior expectations of a livelihood. I kept a lot of humility about what I was doing and showed a lot of respect for my elders, and I think I was rewarded. I try to be generous with my time to young players who are interested in my playing and my journey because I really DID play (and not once but often frequently) with different masters that they can only know from recordings.

---

Subscribe to Jazz Guitar Today – it’s FREE!

Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!