The Chetboard

I posted this on FaceBook but felt that there were more here who would be interested

I was going through some pictures and found a few of a very memorable week I spent in Danbury, Connecticut at a special guitar seminar led by John Knowles, who was very close to Chet, recorded with him and was awarded one of only 5 very coveted “CGP awards”, personally given out by Chet. This stands for “Certified Guitar Player”, which some of you may recognize as the beginning of my email address. One of the days John had Chet come in to spend a day with us. Fortunately one of the attendees was a photographer and took these pictures, which I will always treasure. John called me to the front of the room to demonstrate Chet’s version of “When You Wish Upon a Star”, which uses a lot of “harmonics”, which are a special technique that I won’t explain here but my guitar friends on FB are already familiar with. I was scared to death and this technique requires steady hands, so it wasn’t perfect. Some of these pictures show Chet working with them after I was finished. I apologize for the quality of these pictures but they are pictures of pictures, taken with my iPhone.

Must have been quite a thrill. Thanks for posting.

Yes, it was Al, although a little too much pressure me when I had to play for him!

thanks for posting. i would certainly treasure memories like those if I had done that seminar.

Rich

Rande, these were wonderful photos. Thanks for posting them. It would be so cool to look back on that experience and to know you had done that...played for Chet. Wow!
Take care,
Ray

Thank you for posting. I had the pleasure to meet him a few times and always enjoy getting to see / hear other people's experiences with him. I cannot imagine holding a guitar in front of him, let alone play it. I am sure these photos are some of your most treasured items.

Brent Walker

Hi Al,Ray, and Brent! My good fortune for capturing this memory is the fact that one of those in the audience was a professional photographer who took many photos. I don't know how he dealt with the others whose photos he took, but he just straight out gave me the ones he took of me. I was also very fortunate that John Knowles called me up front to play for Chet. Actually, I was being critiqued and the audience got to watch it all. It was a learning experience for everyone but most terrifying for me!