Artist: Jimmy Raney
James Elbert Raney was an American jazz guitarist, born in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. He is best known for his work from 1951 to 1952 and then from 1953 to 1954 with the Red Norvo trio (replacing Tal Farlow) and, during the same time period, with Stan Getz. In 1954 and 1955, he won the DownBeat Critics' Poll for guitar. Raney worked in a variety of jazz mediums, including cool jazz, bebop, post bop, hard bop, and mainstream jazz.
In 1946, he worked for a time as guitarist with the Max Miller Quartet at Elmer's in Chicago, his first paying gig. Raney also worked in the Artie Shaw Orchestra and collaborated with Woody Herman for nine months in 1948. He also collaborated and recorded with Buddy DeFranco, Al Haig and later on with Bob Brookmeyer.
In 1967, alcoholism and other professional difficulties led him to leave New York City and return to his native Louisville. He resurfaced in the 1970s and also did work with his son Doug, who was also a guitarist.
Raney lived with Ménière's disease for thirty years, a degenerative condition that led to near deafness in both ears, although this did not stop him from playing. Further information about Jimmy Raney is found here.
This content was excerpted from the Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Raney, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).
Jimmy Raney Cal Collins, Autumn Leaves
Jimmy Raney: Videos
Jimmy Raney - Out Of Nowhere
Jimmy Raney in Nashville, Another You