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Every once in a while I wonder where jazz guitar would be today if Eddie Lang hadn't let Bing Crosby convince him to get that damn tonsillectomy that killed him.
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04-29-2016 05:07 PM
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Eddie Lang is the reason this forum isn't jazzbanjo.be.
Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
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Originally Posted by wintermoon
I agree. Even while being seriously sick, he could play like two people at the same time, nonchalantly.
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There's some truth in this. But changes in recording technology were huge: Previously, guitar just didn't come through on recordings, and with better miking, and probably more of them, a guitar could be heard. Originally Posted by christianm77;645835[B
Don't get me wrong. I like banjo somewhat....and Nat King Cole sounded pretty good on one in "Cat Ballou"....but lush flowing, melodious chordal lines on a banjo?. Could you imagine Kenny Burrell or Johnny Smith stuff on a ...banjo ?!...."Moonlight on the Tombigbee"?! (a river in Alabama and Georgia)?!. I have a Dixieland/Chicago style CD with Eddie Condon's people on it...have to check if there is even a banjo on that. (Condon played straight rhythm gtr. his whole life.)
Roy Smeck was also a badass player in his day, and on several instruments... Lonnie Johnson.
I think banjo would have been superseded anyway.
I won't do banjo jokes...but seriously?!
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Chuck Wayne recorded on Banjo. I think there's a track on Morning Mist.
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Oh sure, it's more complex than that, and accounts vary. It's indeed possible guitar is under-recorded in the early years because of technological limitations. Originally Posted by goldenwave77
Condon played tenor guitar, which is kind of a half way house as you play banjo voicings..... I might be wrong but I don't think his stuff used banjo much if at all. When is your Condon record from?
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Oh, the much maligned banjo. People were also doing this back in 1919:
I can well imagine doing Johnny Smith coming up with something beautiful.
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I do, but only one... (mods, please note this is in very small writing coz it's rude). Originally Posted by goldenwave77
Why is a banjo solo like premature ejaculation? You know it's coming and there's nothing you can do about it
Actually, I thought the Chopin was rather nice :-)
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This, in my opinion, is the biggest difference. I listen to Lang (on early Bix records) and frankly his playing leaves me cold despite the technique on display. There is hardly any discernible emotional content in his playing from what I hear. Maybe the arrangements are at fault there. But, with Django you get to hear what the music is saying on an emotional level and it is not all about technique and clean execution (although his technique was excellent). Django was an artist while, IMO, Lang was an excellent side man that laid the ground work for the guitar to emerge as an artistic voice in jazz. Originally Posted by AndyV
BTW - there are two Lang's technique books available on Django Books (as e-books) and they really worth the read.
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Late to the party, but for my $.02 I'd be seriously shocked if a world wide poll of guitarists and non guitarists alike didn't think that Django was the superior musician in just about every respect. Then again, you'd probably get the same outcome if you polled Django against CC, although I'll listen to more CC than Django who, after a while, sounds too "stylized" and always imposes a similar "mood". CC on the other hand I can listen too without altering my current mood...
But back to Django, you guys never seem to bring up his late electric "bop" period. I'll bet Django would like to have been remembered more for his last years of playing, which were quite different from the gypsyish stylings which underscored most of his acoustic playing.Last edited by princeplanet; 01-05-2017 at 11:35 AM.
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First, comparing artists from different cultures, traditions, time frames, etc. makes no sense. There is no "best" in art. It took me many years to learn that the music played by the guy on the street corner who only knows one chord but plays the hell out of that chord can potentially, have as much aesthetic content as Bartok or Charlie Parker, just in a different context.
Now, on to Django and Lang.
There are many Gypsy jazzers today who play technical rings around Django and have the luxury of time to direct and understand Django's work plus the 60+ years of changes in the music and new rhythmic and harmonic innovations that took place. Still, for me, they don't equal Django as an artist because of the unique poetry of his playing that speaks to generations across time. There is a melancholy aspect to his work that speaks to the human condition in a stronger way than so many who followed his path. In my book, that aspect of Django's playing has still not been equalled. Musicologically, Django fused the French Musette tradition with Gypsy music and American jazz. The purity and free abandon of his improvisations remains timeless and artistically, above most who followed in his footsteps.
Eddie Lang , as has been pointed out, comes from a different lineage that in some ways, was closer to classical music and ragtime. He was a brilliant technical and innovator with great taste and that's why his work while of its time, retains a timeless quality that makes him still listenable today, while many 20s and early 30s players simply sound dated. If you analyze his playing it remains impressive and definitely influenced Django's early work. It would have been interesting to see how he evolved as he aged and was introduced to all the changes that happened in jazz. Joe Venuti more our less calcified his style and stayed with it. Django evolved after hearing Duke Ellington and Be Bop. Had he lived into the 60s, what would he have sounded like after hearing Coltrane and Hendrix?
Last edited by AndyV; 11-10-2017 at 02:11 PM.
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[QUOTE=Rob MacKillop;726944]Oh, the much maligned banjo. People were also doing this back in 1919:
I liked the Chopin piece, and your playing, but I think I would like it more on a guitar.
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Well, maybe, but that's not the point of my post. I was merely pointing out that not all banjo music is the generally perceived negative archetype, that there were many players and composers in the early jazz period who were doing quite advanced things with the banjo, not just classical music. The fact that you prefer Chopin on the guitar does not negate that, as far as I can see.
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I suppose what I'm saying is that the sound of the banjo is one I associate w/ specialized "dialects" of music...very vernacular, almost folk-lore-y kinds of styles, e.g. Dixieland, Bluegrass, but in the pd. from say 1930-today, how many banjo players are well-known or used, or have pushed that instrument into other musical areas? Bela Fleck I guess is the prime counterexample.
It's just the cluck-clucky sound of the instrument itself doesn't lend itself, IMO, to expressing what's possible in the music itself. "Body and Soul" on the banjo?...I just don't think it would come across well, but on nylon string guitar (which I know you play superbly, as well)...it could be great. On an electric archtop--also great...on an acoustic archtop--also great.
I like the sound of a Hammond B-3, but for playing faster pieces in the classical piano repertoire, I don't think it would work that well.
And if Eddie Lang had not come along, somebody else would have, to expand the guitar's role, and to relegate the banjo to a jazz rarity.Last edited by goldenwave77; 01-05-2017 at 05:44 PM.
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Howard Alden plays banjo. And makes it sound pretty good, which takes tons of talent.
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I love them both.
The relationship between Lang and Django is odd. On the one hand, it seems like the Venuti-Lang records were an obvious influence on the Hot Club. But Django played in a really unique style that was nothing at all like Lang.
Lang has basically two modes: he plays what I hear as vaguely sort of old-school european music, like april kisses, or a little love, little kiss, and he plays blues stuff like with Lonnie Johnson or Bessie Smith or on Perfect. He signals he's playing the blues by bending strings and adding a ton of vibrato and it always sounds to me like "white guy is playing the blues now." Really, Eddie in "blues" mode is the precursor to blues rock in that sense, while Django's road leads right to country in the US. But Django in solo mode, like on Naguine, sounds more like lang
Eddie had kind of a lousy sense of swing. There. I said it. He's stiff. he always sounds like he's trying too hard. Django was much more fluid, but then again he benefitted from better recording technology. There has never been a better accompanist on guitar than Lang
The really odd person is Charlie Christian--where does THAT come from? Eddie was always busting a gut showing he was playing the blues--bending and vibratoing all over the place--and Charlie was just too cool for that. I think it's Lester Young for Christian, and Lang was dead by then. Who knows where he would have gone? I think probably he would have become a hollywood studio guy
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[QUOTE=PB+J;727195]
The really odd person is Charlie Christian--where does THAT come from? Eddie was always busting a gut showing he was playing the blues--bending and vibratoing all over the place--and Charlie was just too cool for that. I think it's Lester Young for Christian,
Christian's family was musical, and he studied trumpet and piano at an early age, but devoted himself to guitar from age 12 on, acc'd to Scott Yanow's The Great Jazz Guitarists. So, he probably knew his way around the keyboard but was never going to be the next Earl Hines.
He played some trumpet---also a really difficult instrument, but a single line instrument. So, as someone turning to guitar after some piano (and trumpet), it's not farfetched to think he wouldn't want to be replicating what the piano can do better (chordal harmony) but might play it like a trumpet. Carl Kress and Dick McDonough and others (Lang) I think viewed gtr. as primarily an accompanying instrument.
And we know Christian listened to Lester Young, and also jammed a lot with a hot tenor sax player named Dick Wilson: I can imagine the two of them feeding lines to each other. Add in electrification---bingo (!)---the ability to be heard, and all of a sudden, Christian's wish---to establish the guitar as a true solo voice--became more than wishful thinking.
The Rough Guide quotes Diz on Christian--"He knew the blues and he knew how to do the swing. He had a great sense of harmony and he lifted up the gtr. to a solo voice in jazz...but he never showed me a total knowledge of the harmonic possibilities of the instrument."
Bill James, one of my favorite baseball writers, said Babe Ruth was a great, great player, but not quite superhuman. Ruth was the first to realize that swinging for the fences, and striking out 100 times a year, might not be bad if you hit 40, 50, or 60 home runs. Within 10-15 yrs., other guys were approaching Ruth's single season production, though Ruth was still a bit better. Ruth happened to be the first guy to successfully adopt a new approach and do it well. I think Christian is the same. Guys like Kessel, Oscar Moore, Bill Arango, Chuck Wayne, Herb Ellis & Remo Palmieri all had a lot of Charlie Christian in what they did, but they might have done it anyway if Christian hadn't happened along first.Last edited by goldenwave77; 01-06-2017 at 09:38 AM.
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There was an interesting article about the often overlooked Eddie Durham, who it is said took Christian under his wing.
Durham (apparently) wrote a lot of the Basie book at the time, as well as playing guitar and trombone as we know. He was an early trailblazer of the electric guitar.
Eddie Durham: Genius in the Shadows
Given the same article claims Durham popularised 6th chords in big band arrangements could we make a connection between this and CC's fondness for minor sixth sounds in lines? Dunno...
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I have a confession to make. I don't like Django. It's not really jazz, it's gypsy. And the Hot Quintet? Wonderful musicianship but heard one, heard 'em all.
Sorry about that
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I've got a rant. Open that page and it won't allow you access unless you disable your adblocker. Originally Posted by christianm77
Why should I? It's there to prevent annoying, irrelevant material messing up my reading experience. What do they think, that I'm susceptible to ads, that I'm going to start manically buying stuff?
They're wrong. And if I want to view sans ads I'll damn well do it or close the page. Which I did. So they've just lost a viewer.
Don't tell me how to run my own computer!
Grrr
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Well they have to generate revenue somehow to cover their running costs, no? Originally Posted by ragman1
I've got a rant. Open that page and it won't allow you access unless you disable your adblocker.
Why should I? It's there to prevent annoying, irrelevant material messing up my reading experience. What do they think, that I'm susceptible to ads, that I'm going to start manically buying stuff?
They're wrong. And if I want to view sans ads I'll damn well do it or close the page. Which I did. So they've just lost a viewer.
Don't tell me how to run my own computer!
Grrr
I imagine advertisers will increasingly insist on this kind of thing.
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And software will evolve to bypass it again.
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Absolutely, it's like the missile war - missile, counter-missile, counter-counter-missile-missile... stupid... Originally Posted by sgosnell
and that really exists!
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But the advertisers assume a couple of things.
One - if you can see their adverts you'll want their products - which isn't true.
Two - they behave as though having an adblocker on your computer means nobody else in the world can see the adverts. And that if you disable it suddenly everybody can see them - which isn't true.
The point is they're not giving you a choice. That's what's wrong with it.*
* I'm talking about the sites that forbid access unless you get the adverts too.
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I sure have brought up his late electric "bop" period on a couple of occasions. And posted youtubes. It's my favorite of his playing. I understand that once he got on an electric he preferred it. He got a Gibson when he was in the US but was happier with his gypsy guitar with a pickup on it. He recorded with this in the early 50s and it's some great stuff. Some of the best guitar music that I've ever heard. There's a CD Originally Posted by princeplanet
with Pierre Michelot, called something like Paris Jazz, that's fabulous.
He played on Django Reinhardt's remarkable final record session in 1953, when Reinhardt at last succeeded in coming to terms with both modern jazz and the electric guitar. Later, Michelot claimed to have had a presentiment of the guitarist's approaching death; he said that he felt an involuntary shiver every time the record was subsequently played.
from this article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1493506/Pierre-Michelot.html
:Last edited by mrcee; 01-07-2017 at 11:35 AM.
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