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Konabob
`Olu`olu
USA
928 Posts |
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Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
 Posted - 01/31/2009 : 1:55:03 PM
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Well, you have seen that Selmer style `Ukulele Dennis Lake made me, right?
Couldn't hear the radio show-- dag blamed coal-fired modem!!
But Django influenced everybody.
...and everybody influenced Django.
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Larry Goldstein
Lokahi
267 Posts |
Posted - 01/31/2009 : 4:55:59 PM
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quote:
Couldn't hear the radio show-- dag blamed coal-fired modem!!
Ditto. Maybe another log on the fire? Mahalo Konabob.
Anything by Django is special, and this connection looks too great to not follow-up.
Larry
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Trev
Lokahi
United Kingdom
265 Posts |
Posted - 02/01/2009 : 01:04:47 AM
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This is really interesting. I always thought that Django wasn't particularly popular in America at the time. I heard that it wasn't thought of as 'proper jazz'. I remember reading that his guitar was criticised thus "that's not a guitar, it's a mandolin!" But then I suppose Hawaiian music is mainly about the strings than the horns, so it would make sense for it to flourish in that regard. Also, Americans stationed in Europe during the war would have heard it, and then perhaps been stationed in Hawaii afterwards, bringing the records with them.
Fascinating stuff, looking forward to hearing it.
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Daryl
Aloha
USA
28 Posts |
Posted - 02/01/2009 : 02:34:25 AM
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I got it to work by right clicking on the Listen Live Now and saving target as... And then unblocking popups and unblocking the firewall setting.
Great stuff! I too love swing jazz as well as the big band era of the 40's. |
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 02/01/2009 : 07:37:26 AM
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As far as I can tell, guitarists had heard the Hot Club records early on, even if some of them (George Barnes, for example) decided not to follow that path. Les Paul was copping Django licks in the late 1930s--you can hear the influence on two tracks on the excellent "Swing to Bop Guitar" compilation. And Gabby was a fan of Django (and swing in general)--I think you can hear it in all of his playing.
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Trev
Lokahi
United Kingdom
265 Posts |
Posted - 02/02/2009 : 04:28:39 AM
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Russell - this is really interesting, thanks for that. Sometimes, influence is not in direct correlation with record sales or critical acclaim, I suppose. For each person who thought it was too European, or not 'proper' jazz, there was probably another person who thought 'Hey, that's interesting.' Particularly, as you point out, if they were guitar players.
As someone who plays a bit of mandolin, I was quite amused by the 'mandolin' criticism, and it made me want to hand the guy a mandolin and say to him: "go on then, show me how he does it!" - except of course that the feller concerned would be over 90, if indeed still alive!
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basilking
Lokahi
124 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2009 : 2:39:59 PM
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This may be tangential but I'll blunder on... Have recently been using my old National Style O [round-neck] in standard tuning to achieve some "Faux-Gypsy" flavor in a group I'm part of. It nicely complements the Gitane [Maccafferi-clone] guitar another member plays.
Tau Moe and Sol Ho`opi`i toured all over the world incl Europe playing Nationals lap-style along with accompanists in their groups playing Nationals "standard" style. Does anyone besides me wonder why Django & other Gypsy-jazz players didn't gravitate to Nationals or similar?
<Edit> BTW, Mike Ka'awa mentioned the other week that "Sweet Georgia Brown" is "one of the most-requested" tunes from Led's/Mike's Grammy-nominated "Force of Nature". While different from the Django versions their rendition sure "swings" and reflects the wide-spread influence of Django's music. |
Edited by - basilking on 02/04/2009 2:49:14 PM |
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Trev
Lokahi
United Kingdom
265 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2009 : 02:34:40 AM
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Nationals may have been widely available in America in the 30s, but like all American guitars they would not have been easy to get hold of in Europe at that time. And even if they were, the cost of them would have been prohibitive. Mainly I think it was because there weren't really many, if any of them around.
Today, American guitars (Gibson, Martin, Taylor) are much more widely available, but Nationals are still pretty rare. And all American instruments have always been very expensive for us Europeans!
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rendesvous1840
Ha`aha`a
USA
1055 Posts |
Posted - 02/07/2009 : 05:16:55 AM
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Nationals were originally developed to be loud enough to stand up to the brass sections in jazz orchestras. Django 's Quintet Of The Hot Club really didn't need the extra volume, it was 2 guitars, Fiddle, Bass and piano. As for European jazz orchestras, the lack of availability was probably the real deciding factor. By the 1940's, the development of electric instruments was eroding the need for resonator guitars anyway.
Paul |
"A master banjo player isn't the person who can pick the most notes.It's the person who can touch the most hearts." Patrick Costello |
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 02/07/2009 : 4:31:39 PM
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Oscar Aleman, who was working in Paris at the same time as Django, played a National Tricone until the Nazis confiscated it before he returned to Argentina. (For the metal in it, they said--but I wonder if some officer wound up with it.) You can hear it on the recordings he made in Paris (I'm not sure whether he replaced it when he got home).
I suspect that even if Nationals had been readily available and affordable in France at the time, Django wouldn't have bothered--as an endorser, all he had to do was drop by the Selmer factory for a new Modele Jazz.
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Edited by - Russell Letson on 02/07/2009 4:32:21 PM |
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