As promised earlier, here's a master-class workout from Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli.
If, after the lick Django pulls off at 1:25 (first instrumental break after the scat-singing -- a bit more than a third of the way through), the top of your head is still attached to your skull, you seriously need to check your pulse. The proper reaction to that break is an exploded head, brains all over the ceiling, tragic phone calls to the relatives, Oh dear god the poor thing listened to "After You've Gone" without proper due care, forewarning, and protective gear...
After You've Gone (pops)
16 comments:
Geeze!
From Sunny Jim -
That's some joyful noise, Neddie.
In my travels hooking up high school students and music, Django Reinhardt is one of the historical figures I ask them about. (Specifically, the question is: Match the person with the musical instrument he/she is known for.) Sadly, not one student in five-hundred will know the answer.
Signs of the times, I guess, with music being removed from high school curriculums. The silver lining, though, is that students who are musical are blown away when hearing somebody like Django for the first time.
Cheers.
This is obviously not the first time I have heard Django (my album collection of him runs into the dozens LOL), but I am ALWAYS blown away whenever I hear him.
For more guitar fun, TBoggarino posted a U-Tuber of one Anastasia Bardina playing on a Russian 7-string guitar. I had never heard of the animal, but it seems it's tuned to a G chord with a low B string. Amazing results.
Oops! A low D string, id est.
Sorry.
I'm sending you the cleaning bill for my ceiling.
Seriously, holy crap! That was completely great.
I'm sending you the cleaning bill for my ceiling.
'S okay, I'm insured for that kind of thing.
Thanks for the link, bide-a-wee.
Holy crap. If Art Tatum could play like that, with his elbows, you'd have a rough analogue.
Thank you for that! Keep the favs coming!
Do you happen to have the liner notes? I wondering who the fiddler is. He ain't so bad. Best I can google is maybe Eddie South?
Oh, no, sir, that's incontrovertibly Stéphane Grappelli, and the band is the Quintette du Hot Club de France, comprising Django's brother Nin-Nin, his cousin Eugene Vees, possibly Roger Grasset on bass, and Grappelli.
The singer is Freddie Taylor, a mediocrity so obscure that he doesn't get a Wikipedia page. Big reefer enthusiast, according to Dregni's biography of Django. You can kind of hear it in his phrasing...
That was really cool!
I kept imagining all of us the whole time in a black and white film. You know the kind. The kind that plays a little too fast, with lots of static and everyone's moving too quickly. A few doing the charleston and few toasting and drinking (smoking cigars also, of course) and a couple hugging as the girl bats her eyes quickly at the camera and giggles?
I don't know, I kinda like Mr. Taylor. I've got him singing on a couple Oscar Aleman tracks (until now I thought it was Oscar's voice--hm!) and he's got a real mellow swing. I guess we know why he's so mellow. The scatting is a problem though. I do wonder what his story was.
GlueBirl: You've gotta have Josephine Baker's ass somewhere in the picture... Her paramour, Georges Simenon, wrote, "Hers is, without question, the world's most famous and most desired butt. A butt so famous, so desired that it might well be an object of adulation, enveloped in dense billows of incense burned by the lust of thousands. It is a photogenic butt. The silver screen captures its firm, sweet contours, its lascivious quivers and wild convulsions...." (From Django: Life and Music of a Gypsy Legend. Baker danced and entertained in many of the same clubs where Django developed his reputation.)
About a year ago I began listenting to Eddie Lang & Joe Venuti sides, and as much as Django & Stephan completely smoke, I've got to say, Lang & Venuti were there first.
Jazz bands had banjos until Eddie Lang switched to guitar. He was the highest paid sideman in the country when he died of a botched toncilectomy in '34. Lang also cut blues guitar duets with Lonnie Johnson, which is probably how he is best known today.
A definite brain detonator. But if you want your heart to explode as well, give a listen sometime to "Mystery Pacific" ... if you dare. It makes me stand up, fidget; I begin to sweat, my heart rate increases through Stephane's solo; by the time Django begins his solo I begin to hop around, I can't stay still, I have to run. Train coming. Faster. Whistle screaming can't escape can't heartracing racingpounding POUNDINGPOUNDING TRAINFLYINGHEARTEXPLODING!!! ............
Mr Divide is correct about Lang & Venuti. Great stuff.
Re this excellent Django track, here's the detail:
Recorded 4 May 1936 in Paris.
Stephane Grappelli - violin; Django Reinhardt, Joseph Reinhardt, and Pierre Ferret - guitar; Lucien Simoens - bass; Freddy Taylor - vocal
I have the (OOP) Mosaic Records Django boxed set. Definitely a worthwhile investment.
I misspoke. Mosaic's Django set is still available. It certainly did the job for me better than the usual 1-disc Django compilations I kept seeing which all seemed to have have the same 20 tunes.
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