In 1957 Byrd met
double bassist Keter Betts in a Washington, D.C., club called the Vineyard. The two began doing gigs together, and by October they were frequently performing at a club called the Showboat. In 1959 the pair joined
Woody Herman's band and toured
Europe for 3 weeks as part of a
State Department-sponsored "goodwill" tour. The other members of the band were
Vince Guaraldi,
Bill Harris,
Nat Adderley and drummer Jimmy Campbell.
Byrd also led his own groups that sometimes featured his brother Joe. Byrd was also active as a teacher in the late 1950s; he trained several guitar students at his home in D.C., each being required to 'audition' for him, before he decided if they had potential enough to warrant his input.
Byrd was first introduced to Brazilian music by his friend radio host
Felix Grant who had established contacts in Brazil in the late 1950s and who was well-known there by 1960, due to the efforts of Brazilian radio broadcaster Paulo Santos. Following a spring 1961 diplomatic tour of South America (including Brazil) for the State Department, Byrd returned home and met with
Stan Getz at the Showboat Lounge. Byrd invited Getz back to his home to listen to some
bossa nova recordings by
João Gilberto and
Antonio Carlos Jobim that he had brought back. Getz liked what he heard and the two decided they wanted to make an album of the songs. The task of creating an authentic sound, however, proved much more challenging than either had anticipated.
Getz convinced
Creed Taylor at
Verve Records to produce the album, and Byrd and he assembled a group of musicians they both knew to create the recordings. These early sessions did not turn out to either man's liking, so Byrd gathered a group of musicians that had been to Brazil with him previously and practiced with them in
Washington, D.C. until he felt they were ready to record. The group included his brother Gene Byrd, as well as
Keter Betts,
Bill Reichenbach and
Buddy Deppenschmidt. Bill and Buddy were both
drummers, and the combination made it easier to achieve authentic
samba rhythms. Finally the group was deemed ready and Getz and Taylor arrived in Washington D.C. on February 13, 1962. They recorded in a building adjacent to All Souls
Unitarian Church because of the building's excellent acoustics.
The recordings were released in April 1962 as the album
Jazz Samba, and by September the recording had entered
Billboard's pop album chart. By March of the following year the album had moved all the way to number one, igniting a
bossa nova craze in the American jazz community as a result. It should be noted that the term bossa nova did not become used in reference to the music until later. The album remained on the charts for seventy weeks, and Getz soon beat
John Coltrane in a
Down Beat poll. One of the album's most popular tunes was a Jobim hit, titled "
Desafinado".
In 1963 Byrd did a
European tour with
Les McCann and
Zoot Sims, among others.
Either in 1964 or 1965 Byrd appeared at the
Newport Jazz Festival with
Episcopal priest
Malcolm Boyd, accompanying prayers from his book
Are You Running With Me Jesus? with guitar.
In 1967 Byrd brought a
lawsuit against Stan Getz and
MGM, contending that he was unfairly paid for his contributions to the 1962 album
Jazz Samba. The
jury agreed with Byrd and awarded him half of all royalties from the album.
His earliest trios included bassist Keeter Betts and drummers Buddy Deppinschmidt and Bertel Knox. In the early 1960s Betts joined
Ella Fitzgerald and Byrd's brother Gene H. (Joe) Byrd became bassist for the group. Joe Byrd played with his brother until Charlie Byrd's death in 1999 of cancer. Byrd's trios also included drummers Billy Reichenbach for over ten years, Wayne Phillips for several years and for the last 19 years Chuck Redd.
In 1967, or more likely 1968, his quartet was on a state department tour in Asia, which included Katmandu, Nepal. Upon invitation by the pastor, that stop included him playing both Bach and a spiritual at the worship service of the (International) Protestant Congregation on Sunday morning.
In 1973 Byrd moved to
Annapolis, Maryland, and in September of that year he recorded an interesting album with
Cal Tjader titled
Tambú, the only recording the two would make together.
That same year Byrd joined guitarists
Herb Ellis and
Barney Kessel and formed the Great Guitars group, which also included
drummer Johnny Rae.
Byrd collaborated with Venezuelan pianist and composer Maestro Aldemaro Romero on the album
Onda Nueva/The New Wave.
From 1980 through 1996, he released several of his arrangements to the jazz and classical guitar community through Guitarist's Forum (gfmusic.com) including
Charlie Byrd's Christmas Guitar Solos, Mozart: Seven Waltzes For Classical Guitar, and
The Charlie Byrd Library featuring the music of
George Gershwin and
Irving Berlin. He also collaborated with the
Annapolis Brass Quintet in the late 1980s, appearing with them in over 50 concerts across the United States and releasing two albums.
A jazz supper club in Georgetown, DC also bore his name, "Charlie's". When he died, he was "at home" in the King of France Tavern of the Maryland Inn.
Upon his death, a scholarship was endowed in his name at the
Peabody Conservatory of the
Johns Hopkins University.
Byrd played for several years at a jazz club in
Silver Spring, Maryland, called The Showboat II which was owned and managed by his manager, Peter Lambros. He was also home-based at the King of France Tavern
nightclub at the Maryland Inn in Annapolis from 1973 until his death in 1999. In 1992 the book "Jazz Cooks"—by
Bob Young[disambiguation needed] and Al Stankus—was published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, a compilation of recipes that include a few recipes from Byrd.
He also authored the 1973 publication
Charlie Byrd's Melodic Method for Guitar.
Byrd was married to Rebecca Byrd, and has two daughters from previous marriages, Carol Rose of Charlotte, NC, and Charlotte Byrd of Crownsville, MD. He loved
sailboating, and owned a twenty-six foot boat called "I'm Hip" that he sailed to various parts of the world. Charlie Byrd died of
lung cancer on December 2, 1999 at his home in
Annapolis, Maryland.
