Is Eddie Lang better than Django Reinhardt?

[princeplanet]

I have this quirky release from 2002 of a collection of various recordings around Europe in 1947. Sound quality varies, but no matter how bad the sound is, you can't snuff his spirit, it always cuts through. Some of the most exciting electric sounds I've ever heard, from anyone, anytime.

Django Reinhardt - Art of Jazz Guitar CD Album

[mrcee]

I have this quirky release from 2002 of a collection of various recordings around Europe in 1947. Sound quality varies, but no matter how bad the sound is, you can't snuff his spirit, it always cuts through. Some of the most exciting electric sounds I've ever heard, from anyone, anytime.

Django Reinhardt - Art of Jazz Guitar CD Album

I may have heard some of that. If you get a chance to hear the 1953 stuff I'm sure you'd love it. A good quality recording
with great players in a modern setting.

[Lionelsax]

One day Django said : "I hear things I can't play because of my fingers."

[christianm77]

Thinking about it, it's more 'Eddie Lang is more interesting than Django because the Gypsy Jazz thing is starting to get a bit cliche.'

I'm really digging Matt Munisteri at the moment....

[Chema Mrua]

I can't help it, whenever I listened to Reinhardt-Grappelli's stuff I got hipnotized with the violin, so I never truly felt in love by that kind of guitar. Same with Lang-Venuti.

[AndyV]

Stochelo Rosenberg gets remarkably close to Django's electric sound here via a Gypsy jazz guitar with a Stimer pickup.

The Rosenberg Trio | (English) Booking Rosenberg Trio www.therosenbergtrio.info

[richpiv]

I kind of like Dick McDonough better than Eddie Lang. From 1937 -

Although this one, while more recent, isn't bad either -

[christianm77]

Yeah MCDonough is great - more modern really, more swing. More to my taste in fact.

[ronjazz]

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

No apologies necessary. It's your mind, close it if you like.

By the way, it is jazz. Gypsy is not a musical style. As far as your final "thought", one could easily say the same thing about Bird, Trane or Wes, if one wanted to really drive the closed-mindedness home.

[Lionelsax]

No apologies necessary. It's your mind, close it if you like.

By the way, it is jazz. Gypsy is not a musical style. As far as your final "thought", one could easily say the same thing about Bird, Trane or Wes, if one wanted to really drive the closed-mindedness home.

You're absolutely right, Gypsy is not a style, when someone asked Stéphane Grappelli about Gypsy Jazz he used to say he didn't know about it, he just said it was just a kind of European Jazz and played the way they felt it.
Biréli Lagrène says exactly the same thing, he says he just plays jazz and he can really be very modern at the same time.

[christianm77]

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

There's more to Django than the Quintet. I like some of his later recordings actually because he was playing with a less wooden Polka-ish section.

Incredible improvisor though, rarely repeated himself. It's a real rabbit hole...

Not actually my favourite player of the era though.

And yet here I am often playing Hot Club style material. It's funny. American swing and bop is actually more to my taste. Still, there you go... People seem to think I play within that style, so I often find myself playing in that context.

[christianm77]

You're absolutely right, Gypsy is not a style, when someone asked Stéphane Grappelli about Gypsy Jazz he used to say he didn't know about it, he just said it was just a kind of European Jazz and played the way they felt it.
Biréli Lagrène says exactly the same thing, he says he just plays jazz and he can really be very modern at the same time.

This raises the ugly head of Authenticity, of course. If you are a Manouche guitarist who learns this music from 6, Authenticity is a moot point.

Birelli hasn't played what we might call a 'pure' Manouche style for a long time. And why should he? He has played many styles of music with many great musicians Gypsy and non-Gypsy - even his acoustic playing represents a very eclectic mindset, albeit with his native accent.

A bit like Django, in fact.

For those who don't come from this background who play a traditional music like this, they often want to buy into this via the cult of 'authenticity.'

I have no claims to Authenticity. The very concept bores me - BUT - I do think it is interesting sometimes to study a little of a style, for example Brazilian music or bebop ... Or Gypsy swing... It all ends up in the mixing pot of Doom.

I do like the concept of Django being one of the wellsprings of a European approach to jazz, despite my ambivalence.

[Lionelsax]

[christianm77]

Speaking of which here is a vid I did for Jam of the Week, but they won't let me in yet...

[ragman1]

No apologies necessary. It's your mind, close it if you like.

By the way, it is jazz. Gypsy is not a musical style. As far as your final "thought", one could easily say the same thing about Bird, Trane or Wes, if one wanted to really drive the closed-mindedness home.

See, I really love this, can't get enough of it... what do you think?

[tfaux]

Django was brilliant and had more technique in his little finger than... uh, wait a sec, let me rephrase this...

Django was a genius, but I prefer Eddie Lang's tone. To me those Selmers sound thin, especially paired with violin.

Tom

[TheGrandWazoo]

I love Eddie Lang (Sal Massaro). The below is taken from a blog I used to keep where I wrote about Lang and his peers...

"Many guitarists are aware of Eddie Lang and his status as one of the first to popularize the guitar in the jazz idiom but that is usually where it ends. In order to truly understand and appreciate the importance of Eddie Lang (real name Sal Massaro), you must understand the context of his playing in the late 1920s and early 30s. Lang’s rise as a guitarist coincided with the boom of radio sales and the improvement of fidelity in recording equipment and microphones. The improvement in technology allayed volume problems that previously limited the use of quieter instruments in orchestras like the guitar and baritone singers (think Bing Crosby). The increased sensitivity of microphones allowed Lang to bring his talent to bear in the studio providing accompaniment and solos never before heard in contemporary music. In essence, Lang was the first studio guitar ace; legitimizing the guitar’s role as a solo, accompaniment, and ensemble instrument.

Eddie Lang recorded April Kisses along with Eddie’s Twister, his first solo record, on April 1, 1927 in New York City for the Okeh label where he was the house guitarist from 1926 until the year of his death, 1933. A common complaint about Lang was that he didn’t “swing” which is an argument easily won by the complainant. But, similar to his contemporaries (Lonnie Johnson, Johnny St. Cryer, etc…), whose societal upbringing and cultural heritage influenced their playing (the blues); Lang’s own playing was defined and influenced by his own cultural and musical heritage growing up in the Italian immigrant communities of Philadelphia (classical and Italian folk). A product of his upbringing and musical schooling, Lang brought to the public ear a level of technical proficiency and mastery of the guitar never before recorded in jazz and popular song. In the opening cadenza of April Kisses, Lang uses his prowess with single line runs to great effect establishing with the listener his ‘serious musician’ credentials."

Additionally, anyone looking for further indepth reading on azz/popular song in the 1920.. Eddie Lang - The formative Years - by Nick Dellow (Opens in PDF)
http://www.vjm.biz/167-eddie-lang-web-layout-1.pdf

[EarlBrother]

Very interesting thanks.First time i heard him was blip in a movie cant remember it but it looked to me like he was playing chord melody or CM as we refer to it!The writing for me anyway was a time machine.

[christianm77]

Nice piece Wazoo

[tfaux]

Very sweet Rob MacKillop.

[Rob MacKillop]

Not sure why you shared that again, tfaux, but glad you like it!

[Donnie]

Apples V.S. Oranges; Bing Crosby loved working with Lang and what I've heard and seen (the movie White Christmas), I can understand it; also have a CD of Lonnie Johnson with a few tunes played with Lang. What I've heard Django do on the 3 CD's I have, and what I've seen on you tube videos, his speed, tone and Spot On intonation is beyond incredible. All of that said, Lang was American Jazz, Django was Gypsy/French Jazz... can you say one is better than the other? APPLES AND ORANGES my friends!

[massarofan]

i love to hear this combination of such wonderful talent. eddie's runs were like a vine wrapping around bing's voice. i've read that eddie was bing's closest personal pal and while being eddie's pallbearer saw his funeral turn into a public mess. sorry i dont know much about django but will learn on this site. thanks

[Roberoo]

As others have said, Django plays jazz but it is not his whole bag. You also have blues, musette, gypsy pieces, light opera and French popular song in his repetoire. And, most importantly, it somehow fuses into an identifiable sound that is Django.

I have to disagree with ragman that Django's stuff all sounds the same. Maybe it depends on the recording(s) you have but if you go from say 1935 to 1953 the diversity of tunes, sounds and approach - it is just astounding. The other thing that really strikes me is how harmonically adventurous he was and the touch points with Debussy, Ravel and other French classical composers of the time. Pieces like Porto Cabello,Mélodie Au Crépescule, and Vamp have these very modernistic over-tones that reference 20th century classical music that you don't hear in much jazz (except maybe Bix and the third stream stuff starting in the 50s).

I would strongly agree that most post Django gypsy players sound samey and frankly pretty boring. In later years, the Pompe starts to sound like a drum machine and as if you are being relentlessly assaulted. It doesn't swing or bounce at all. I am convinced a computer could play a modern Pompe to perfection.The emotional content (i.e. romance and nostalgia) is mostly gone and substituted by speed and the spinning out of long furious lines. I find that stuff impressive (truly) but only for about 5 minutes. Then I change the channel. I mostly stick to Django, the Ferrer borthers, Tchan Thcou Vidal, and Fapy Lafertin. I like that Duved kid also... he takes his time and seems to mine the past with a great deal of attentiveness!

[Greentone]

I studied Lang's style carefully. For about eight years I performed behind a singer with a Bing delivery. I was his Eddie.

Lang was an accomplished guitarist. Providing just the right support for an accomplished singer is an art.