Is Eddie Lang better than Django Reinhardt?

[christianm77]

I've come across quite a few people who say they think Eddie Lang is better than Django. Aside from the fact that it's a bit childish to rank guitar players like this I have to say I disagree.

To me Django has a vastly superior technique with tremendous control over dynamics, a more advanced sense of harmony and a much more swinging post Louis conception of rhythm. Django is primarily a changes runner but a vastly creative one. I would rank him as one of the greatest improvisors of all time.

Eddie on the other hand is a more old school melody based improviser with absolutely killer chordal accompaniment chops. His rhythmic concept is very different - very straight, more ragtime than Louis to my ears. Some early buffs like this kind of thing. To me it sounds a bit stiff - that's a matter of taste I'm thinking.

So in a sense it's totally apples and oranges, but saying that Lang is better than Django to me sounds like the sort of thing you would say if you were getting a bit tired of the ubiquity of Django as an icon and the fact more often than not the only jazz guitarist the man in the street can actually name. I know how this feels.

It's a bit hipster.

(I went through this phase a couple of years back by repeating the old Leonard Feather canard that Oscar Aleman is better than Django. He's not actually IMHO. he has a tremendous perhaps superior sense of rhythm but isn't quite up there at the level of Django IMO.)

It's all a bit childish, but why let that stop us? I'm looking forward to some excellent internet arguing. Off we go! :-)

[nick1994]

i dig both but i can't stand the django worship. i went through a comparison of them both a few months ago, i prefer Eddie Lang.

[Space Pickle]

who would win in a fight

[christianm77]

who would win in a fight

Joe Venuti

[christianm77]

i dig both but i can't stand the django worship. i went through a comparison of them both a few months ago, i prefer Eddie Lang.

That's cool, I won't accuse you of being a hipster. What would you say you prefer about Lang's playing over Django's?

[mr. beaumont]

It's ridiculously stupid to compare guitar players as to who's better, and no fucking way, Django was insane.

[teleman3726]

Eddie Rules.

[christianm77]

I think there's a a distinct lack of qualified argument in these replies. Oh well serves me right for starting a stupid thread.

Django rules.

[nick1994]

That's cool, I won't accuse you of being a hipster. What would you say you prefer about Lang's playing over Django's?

for me django is too much language. i prefer langs melodic sense.

[christianm77]

for me django is too much language. i prefer langs melodic sense.

In the sense that Lang often plays tasteful reinterpretations of the original melody, whereas Django can't get go more than about 4 bars into the tune without going completely off on one?

The more I think about this, the more I think that there is really very little in common between them beyond the instrument they played. It's like comparing Hank Marvin and Jimi Hendrix.

Lang was coming from an era where jazz composers wrote complex multi-part compositions with lots of written sections, and where the jazz was often based around syncopating and embellishing the melody. Django's interest in jazz started with Louis Armstrong....

I'm a swing guy, not an early guy, that's probably the test, right? :-) I've listened heavily and transcribed both. I think my choice isn't one based on ignorance, but who knows what I'll think in a few years time?

[PMB]

Marvin and Hendrix isn't too far off the mark.

Django undoubtedly considered Lang and Joe Venuti as a model for the Quintette du Hot Club but I don't think the influence went much further than that. If anything, he sounds as if he picked up more from Lonnie Johnson, especially the latter's playing on Louis Armstrong sides such as Hotter Than That.

At any rate, neither of them can match the legendary but unrecorded Welsh genius, Eddie Llango.

[P.J.]

Is Wolverine better than the Hulk? Both had issues when playing guitar.

Hulk would often smash his guitar if he got frustrated or didn't play delicately.

Wolverine would break strings and ruin finishes.

I wouldn't lend either of them any of my guitars.

[destinytot]

Emmet Ray was better than both. (Wanna go shoot some rats?)

[TH]

Joe Venuti

By now we should know it's now about who was a better guitar player but who played the organ the best. And here I'd say Joe's got it. I'd heard stories about Joe's bawdy humour, and when it came to his joking with Bessie Smith, they were the stuff of legend. ...or the "Stuff" of legend. Stories were told of Joe serving up a sandwich to Bessie (no wilting Lily; she could hold her own with the best) and this sandwich was made up of two pieces of bread stuffed with his own ...special sausage.
I'm sorry Django and Eddie. You've been bested.
David

[christianm77]

By now we should know it's now about who was a better guitar player but who played the organ the best. And here I'd say Joe's got it. I'd heard stories about Joe's bawdy humour, and when it came to his joking with Bessie Smith, they were the stuff of legend. ...or the "Stuff" of legend. Stories were told of Joe serving up a sandwich to Bessie (no wilting Lily; she could hold her own with the best) and this sandwich was made up of two pieces of bread stuffed with his own ...special sausage.
I'm sorry Django and Eddie. You've been bested.
David

Joe Venuti was ... unique.

Also, if he doesn't kick Grapelli's butt on those old Blue Four sides?

[TH]

Who's better? Joe Pass, Wes, Django, Eddie Lang, Taylor Swift, Pat Metheny, Justin Bieber?
Let's just count up who won the most Grammy's and then we'll really know.
David

[yaclaus]

Reminds me of the Wes/Green discussions. The former probably had most language, chops, versatility and tunes under his hands. But few are hipper than Green at his prefered tempo.

And yeah for some reason this is something we care about...

[Iced Tea]

. Django is primarily a changes runner but a vastly creative one.

Well...I don't know about that. He really played the changes but he had a composer's conception of music. Don't agree? Listen to his improvisation recordings, Bach, Debussy, Ravel and more - it's all there. Anyway...onto your argument yes Django was probably better, but I heard Eddie Lang was a monster pie-eater. He would clean up at a pie-eating contests.

[christianm77]

Well...I don't know about that. He really played the changes but he had a composer's conception of music. Don't agree? Listen to his improvisation recordings, Bach, Debussy, Ravel and more - it's all there. Anyway...onto your argument yes Django was probably better, but I heard Eddie Lang was a monster pie-eater. He would clean up at a pie-eating contests.

Yeah, I suppose what I was trying to say is Django was heavily interested in harmony and his compositions show that IMO... he was not primarily interested (as far as I can hear) in basing his solos on the melodies of the songs. Which is not say that his solos and compositions couldn't be melodic.

I hear a lot of similarities with Monk in his compositions esp. the later stuff - an off beat quality.

[mr. beaumont]

Angular. Totally agree.

If Django lived in the states (and spoke English) he would have been right in the heart of bebop's creation.

But then, he wouldn't have been django, I suppose

[wintermoon]

Snoozer Quinn!

[wintermoon]

but seriously, I went through a big Django phase about 35 yrs ago and used to play w/a violinist.
but w/all the gypsy players that have since emerged and the huge revival of the idiom I almost can't listen to the HCOF and it's disciples anymore. really got burned out on it.

so I really prefer Lang/Venuti over Reinhardt/Grappelli, never get tired of them.
have always preffered Venuti a lot more than Grappelli as well. Stephane was smooth, but I love the bite and attack to Joe's playing.

[goldenwave77]

OK, I haven't listened to every Django cut...and there are a lot. Most of them never made it to this country (U.S.) I've listened to probably 40 songs, though,...give or take.

Eddie Lang's recorded output is not that huge, AFAIK. I'm not an expert on him by any means.

It seems to me that Lang
and maybe a couple of others were instrumental in firmly establishing the guitar an an instrument in a jazz setting, and relegated the banjo to the sideline. (Some early players were good on both, e.g. Roy Smeck, who I think could play anything with strings on it, and do it well.) But their style seems primarily chordal.

Is it any exaggeration to say that Django is the first great single-string stylist...i.e. the first guy to make the guitar a front and center solo instrument?! If true, every subsequent "Guitar God" can kind of trace themself back to Django.

[jasonc]

OK, I haven't listened to every Django cut...and there are a lot. Most of them never made it to this country (U.S.) I've listened to probably 40 songs, though,...give or take.

Eddie Lange's recorded output is not that huge, AFAIK. I'm not an expert on him by any means.

It seems to me that Lange and maybe a couple of others were instrumental in firmly establishing the guitar an an instrument in a jazz setting, and relegated the banjo to the sideline. (Some early players were good on both, e.g. Roy Smeck, who I think could play anything with strings on it, and do it well.) But their style seems primarly chordal.

Is it any exaggeration to say that Django is the first great single-string stylist...i.e. the first guy to make the guitar a front and center solo instrument?! If true, every subsequent "Guitar God" can kind of trace themself back to Django.

This is pretty much what happened to me. I got really tired of the modern GJ players very quickly and then couldn't really get back in to Django. It wasn't until recently I started listening to Django again and that was because I kind of rediscovered him after transcribing some Rex Stewart lines off of the All Star Sessions. It made me remember how tasteful Django could be and that he really used dynamics unlike most of the current GJ players who seem to have two dynamic levels...forte and fortissimo. Eddie Lang was a phenomenal technician too and I really appreciate his playing but I haven't ever listened to it as much as Django. However, that could be because there is a lot less of his playing to listen to. Didn't Eddie Lang die in his twenties?

[jasonc]

I meant to quote Wintermoon.