Originally posted by Ian Thumwood
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I have been having a spell of listening to the music by perhaps the first great jazz guitarist, Eddie Lang. I have two, double CDs of his music of which the best is the compilation which is largely made up of recordings with blues guitarist Lonnie Johnson. This record also includes oddities like the unlikely band with Lang, King Oliver and Hoagy Carmichael. I think that the duets with Johnsonare a highlight of jazz in the 1920s and have a relaxed feel about them which has the effect of making them sound quite modern. There are a number of other duets with pianist Frank Signorelli which make a marked contrast as they sound very stiff and uncomfortable in comparison. Signorelli is one of those musicians who seemed ubiquitous in the 1920s and then disappeared from a high profile before playing with the revived ODJB and other Trad bands. He is really forgotten these day. All in all, I think this double CD called "Blue Guitars" is an essential record.
The other record is not quite so good in my opinion and chronicles Lang's work with his other well known associated, Joe Venuti. This record is almost disturbing in the way it samples their contribution to various bands between 1926-33 with the music varying from "hot music" through to dance band material by the likes of Roger Wolfe Kahn and Jean Goldkette which may feature brief jazz solos but really needs to be forgotten about. I am not sure who selected some of this material for the compilation as there are a number of tracks which are risible. Don't even get me on to the singers who are dreadful, even when they materialise with the jazz groups ! (Imagine something like Ed Sheeran singing with Henry Threadgill and you can appreciate how odd some of this stuff sounds. ) It is a mixture of the exceptional with a fair dose of truly woeful music. Seen through the eyes of the 2020s, it is an alien world with "cutting edge" jazz musicians appearing on records whose commerciality has rendered the music almost unlistenable. How many jazz fans nowadays would be happy listening to pop music to hear an 8-bar break by a jazz soloist, especially if they were better presented elsewhere?
Amongst this material are some exceptional "chamber jazz" groups such as the Joe Venuti's Blue Four and you get a sense that Lang was extremely accomplished. For me, this makes this collection worthwhile because it is both original and convincing jazz. When I was getting in to jazz , I always felt that it was Venuti's that was more interesting simply because of the novelty of his choice of instrument. Listening again, both Lang and Venuti seem to have arrived in jazz from a more orthodox background but Lang seems more "modern" and perhaps even interesting. The chamber pieces have a charm of their own and are also curios insofar that a lot are based on the chord changes of "Tiger Rag" and seem to exist in their own little world as they are so unlike so much other jazz recorded at that time. I find this type of jazz played by white musicians in the 20s and early 30s to almost sound marooned in it's own era simply because it ultimately proved not to be on the critical path as how jazz ultimately developed. As a result, the eccentricity of the music is very much part of it's appeal.
The second CD in the Venuti / Lang record also introduces some other soloists who are quite impressive. I have never been quite sure of the appeal of Frankie Trumbauer yet his near contemporary Jimmy Dorsey proves to be a really useful soloist in these contexts. He is another name which is seldom mentioned these days yet he was very convincing in the late 20s / early 30s. Other tracks in the selection include the likes of Benny Goodman and the imperious Jack Teagarden. One of the tracks I love is "Farewell Blues" which bowled me over when I first heard it when i was a about 15. However, I keep on coming back to Eddie Lang and thinking what a great acoustic guitarist he was. It is his playing which stands out for me. The appeal of Venuti is less attractive because I think Stuff Smith and Stephane Grappelli were ultimately more successful musically yet Lang strikes me as a musician who would have had a bearing on how jazz developed in the 1930s and maybe the kind of player who would have benefited from longer playing records and better recording techniques in the 1950s.
Rather than diminishing with the passage of time, Lang almost seems to transcend the 1920s as if he was born before his time. I think he was more technically accomplished than his contemporaries and was essentially a virtuoso musician who happened to find his career starting at the time jazz became popular. Given his background, I wonder if his early death was perhaps more of a tragedy than Bix Beiderbecke's who I feel would have always remained a Dixieland player. You just sense that Eddie Lang had a more open mind to those musicians he chose to work with and would have been more adaptable to the changes jazz had to offer. (He must have been one of the few musicians to work in jazz, dance bands and blues as well as with crooners such as Bing Crosby. ) In the history of jazz guitar, Lang is crucial yet, like someone from a later generation such as Clifford Brown, you feel that he had his best work ahead of him when he tragically died aged 30 in 1933.
I cannot recall Eddie Lang's name ever coming up on a thread on this board. Is he someone Joseph has checked out ?
The other record is not quite so good in my opinion and chronicles Lang's work with his other well known associated, Joe Venuti. This record is almost disturbing in the way it samples their contribution to various bands between 1926-33 with the music varying from "hot music" through to dance band material by the likes of Roger Wolfe Kahn and Jean Goldkette which may feature brief jazz solos but really needs to be forgotten about. I am not sure who selected some of this material for the compilation as there are a number of tracks which are risible. Don't even get me on to the singers who are dreadful, even when they materialise with the jazz groups ! (Imagine something like Ed Sheeran singing with Henry Threadgill and you can appreciate how odd some of this stuff sounds. ) It is a mixture of the exceptional with a fair dose of truly woeful music. Seen through the eyes of the 2020s, it is an alien world with "cutting edge" jazz musicians appearing on records whose commerciality has rendered the music almost unlistenable. How many jazz fans nowadays would be happy listening to pop music to hear an 8-bar break by a jazz soloist, especially if they were better presented elsewhere?
Amongst this material are some exceptional "chamber jazz" groups such as the Joe Venuti's Blue Four and you get a sense that Lang was extremely accomplished. For me, this makes this collection worthwhile because it is both original and convincing jazz. When I was getting in to jazz , I always felt that it was Venuti's that was more interesting simply because of the novelty of his choice of instrument. Listening again, both Lang and Venuti seem to have arrived in jazz from a more orthodox background but Lang seems more "modern" and perhaps even interesting. The chamber pieces have a charm of their own and are also curios insofar that a lot are based on the chord changes of "Tiger Rag" and seem to exist in their own little world as they are so unlike so much other jazz recorded at that time. I find this type of jazz played by white musicians in the 20s and early 30s to almost sound marooned in it's own era simply because it ultimately proved not to be on the critical path as how jazz ultimately developed. As a result, the eccentricity of the music is very much part of it's appeal.
The second CD in the Venuti / Lang record also introduces some other soloists who are quite impressive. I have never been quite sure of the appeal of Frankie Trumbauer yet his near contemporary Jimmy Dorsey proves to be a really useful soloist in these contexts. He is another name which is seldom mentioned these days yet he was very convincing in the late 20s / early 30s. Other tracks in the selection include the likes of Benny Goodman and the imperious Jack Teagarden. One of the tracks I love is "Farewell Blues" which bowled me over when I first heard it when i was a about 15. However, I keep on coming back to Eddie Lang and thinking what a great acoustic guitarist he was. It is his playing which stands out for me. The appeal of Venuti is less attractive because I think Stuff Smith and Stephane Grappelli were ultimately more successful musically yet Lang strikes me as a musician who would have had a bearing on how jazz developed in the 1930s and maybe the kind of player who would have benefited from longer playing records and better recording techniques in the 1950s.
Rather than diminishing with the passage of time, Lang almost seems to transcend the 1920s as if he was born before his time. I think he was more technically accomplished than his contemporaries and was essentially a virtuoso musician who happened to find his career starting at the time jazz became popular. Given his background, I wonder if his early death was perhaps more of a tragedy than Bix Beiderbecke's who I feel would have always remained a Dixieland player. You just sense that Eddie Lang had a more open mind to those musicians he chose to work with and would have been more adaptable to the changes jazz had to offer. (He must have been one of the few musicians to work in jazz, dance bands and blues as well as with crooners such as Bing Crosby. ) In the history of jazz guitar, Lang is crucial yet, like someone from a later generation such as Clifford Brown, you feel that he had his best work ahead of him when he tragically died aged 30 in 1933.
I cannot recall Eddie Lang's name ever coming up on a thread on this board. Is he someone Joseph has checked out ?
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