As our most recent post spotlighted favorite musicians, we're taken aback by the news that another all-time favorite, the great guitarist Jeff Beck, has passed at 78.
Mr. Beck, who literally played at the hall in our neighborhood last year and toured well past his 75th birthday, passed on January 10 of meningitis.
Began following Jeff Beck's musical career when he succeeded Eric Clapton in The Yardbirds and at one point was part of a two-guitar rave up lineup with Jimmy Page.
Jimmy inducted Jeff into the Rock & Roll HOF.
Enthusiasm for the guitarist's work extends to his numerous Jeff Beck Group solo albums and appearances with other bandleaders (Stevie Wonder, Jan Hammer, Stevie Ray Vaughn).
While Jeff has passed and left a six decade legacy of recorded music and videos, we sincerely hope that there will be many more albums and concerts forthcoming from his equally brilliant bandmate Tai Wilkenfeld, who won't turn 40 for three years.
Not surprisingly, guitarists have a thing or two to say about Jeff!
Ace guitaristas Rick Beato and Tim Pierce offer this excellent remembrance of Jeff and discussion of what he meant to the world of music.
Very much enjoy Rick Beato's scholarly analysis of Jeff Beck's unique approach to the guitar.
While mourning is definitely not my preferred way to kick off 2023, losses are a part of life.
Will honor the most original guitarist and music in general by binge-watching a bunch of Jeff Beck concerts.
While enjoying the above Franz Kline painting and attempting, with difficulty, to digest the news that numerous Northern California places where I, my family and friends have lived and enjoyed visiting over many decades have been absolutely clobbered (and continue to be clobbered) by violent winter storms as the new year begins, shall direct focus to the world of 20th century music. Jazz fans in our readership: come on down!
From January 2023, we time travel back to 1973 and a rather amazing TV appearance by jazz trumpet genius Freddie Hubbard (1938-2008).
Although at that point, Mr. Hubbard had left Blue Note Records and began waxing more overtly commercial and pop-influenced albums for Creed Taylor's CTI label, this set reflects that in concert, the ace of trumpet exemplified the fire-breathing sensibility of hard bop. Junior Cook (tenor saxophone), George Cables (piano), Kent Brinkley (upright bass) and Michael Carvin (drums) assist skillfully.
Way back in those halcyon days, attended a concert featuring Klaus Doldinger's Passport and Herbie Hancock's Headhunters, two groups that blended rock, funk and jazz creatively and seamlessly. Fortunately, both Herbie and Klaus have enjoyed lengthy careers. Here they are, Klaus Doldinger's Passport, live at the 1974 Frankfurt jazz festival.
In the Klaus Doldinger ensemble as special guest: the great tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin.
Saw Mr. Griffin tear it up with his quartet on several occasions at San Francisco's mecca of music, Keystone Korner in North Beach, way back when.
Key to several Miles Davis ensembles was drummer Tony Williams, the cornerstone of 1960's Miles quintets who subsequently led incendiary rock-jazz fusion bands. One of the best Tony Williams Lifetime groups is seen here at the 1971 Montreux Jazz Festival.
Nobody exemplified the merging of musical genres and questioning of sonic conventions more than pianist/composer/bandleader Herbie Hancock.
On the topic of Herbie Hancock and his mighty funk-jazz-rock band, here they are on a 1976 Danish TV special. It is one of the few and far between video appearances by mighty studio ace guitarist Wah Wah Watson a.k.a. Melvin M. Radin who, as expected, is brilliant and original. As The Wrecking Crew and The Nashville A-Team (led by guitarists Hank "Sugarfoot" Garland, Grady Martin and Chet Atkins) did in the 1950's and 1960's, the ever-inventive Wah Wah Watson played on everyone's records in the 1970's and 1980's.
For another spin on fusion + modern jazz, here's Ornette Coleman and his epic Prime Time Band, rocking the house hard at Palalido in 1980. Ornette created his own unique musical universe starting in the 1950's, then added multiple electric guitars and Fender basses to his ensembles in the 1970's, resulting in an enjoyably surreal supersonic mix.
And, while on the topic of genre-bending, genre-redefining, genre-exploding and genre-extending recording artists, there's the prolific visual artist and unconventional bandleader Don Van Vliet a.k.a. Captain Beefheart.
The Cap'n, a.k.a. Don Van Vliet, in between frequent drawing and painting, led an ensemble way out on the far frontiers of what was considered rock music from 1965 to 1982.
Now, in all honesty, Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band, was closer to Ornette and Albert Ayler than to Connie Francis or ABBA.
What could outdo or at least equal Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band live from Paris? Captain Beefheart on Late Night With David Letterman!
Author and music expert Frank John Hadley described Don Van Vliet best: Unconventional to the nth power, Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) constructed a gnostic blues world where Howlin' Wolf curls Salvador Dali's moustache and Little Walter espouses dadaism.
Of the two early-1970s albums juxtaposed here, The Spotlight Kid most interestingly turns twelve-bar music on its head with Beefheart's multi-octave son-of-Wolf voice, his pixilated lyrics, his marvelous Chicago-style harp, and his specially instructed Magic Band's asymmetrical rhythms.
Continuing the topics of musicians and July birthdays, today we pay tribute to one of the lesser-known masters of 20th century music and jazz: guitarist, vocalist and guitar builder Mary Osborne.
Born on July 17, 1921 in Minot, North Dakota, Mary Osborne is a legend of the guitar, an under-recorded but mindblowingly talented musician. Here's Mary, on the 1958 DuMont Television Network program, Art Ford's Jazz Party, backing none other than Billie Holiday.
In his excellent article, Mary Osborne: Queen Of The Jazz Guitar, author David Brent Johnson elaborates:
It’s perhaps too easy to say that Mary Osborne is an unsung heroine of jazz history, though there's certainly a large degree of truth to such a statement.
A disciple of Charlie Christian, she played with her own subtlety and fire, negotiating the swing-to-bop era of the 1940s with deceptive ease, running the gamut from big bands to R and B and the Nat King Cole-influenced jazz-pop stylings of a trio setting. Some of her finest moments came in all-star and all-women small combos playing the modern jazz of 52nd Street in its Forties heyday.
From the 1950s on Osborne would record as a leader on only a handful of occasions, but her playing only gained in luster, especially on a 1959 date with pianist Tommy Flanagan and drummer Jo Jones. Put the whole notion of gender aside; Mary Osborne was, first and foremost, simply a superlative jazz guitarist.
Wikipedia adds:
Osborne was born in Minot, North Dakota, the tenth of eleven children. As early as 3 years of age, she showed an interest in music. Osborne's earliest instruments included piano, ukulele, violin, and banjo. At age nine, she first played the guitar. At ten, she started playing banjo in her father's ragtime band. She also came to be featured on her own radio program, which she would continue to perform on twice weekly until she was fifteen. At twelve she started her own trio of girls to perform in Bismarck, North Dakota. The music she was playing during this time period was largely "hillbilly", or country music, in which the guitar was simply used to accompany her own vocals.
At the age of fifteen, Osborne joined a trio led by pianist Winifred McDonnell, for which she played guitar, double bass, and sang. During this time, she heard Charlie Christian play electric guitar in Al Trent's band at a stop in Bismarck. She was enthralled by his sound, at first mistaking the electric guitar for a saxophone. She said of it, "What impressed everyone most of all was his sense of time. He had a relaxed, even beat that would sound modern even today." Osborne immediately bought her own electric guitar and had a friend build an amplifier.[4] She sat in with Christian, learning his style of guitar.
Later, McDonnell's trio was absorbed into Buddy Rogers's band, after Rogers heard them play in St. Louis. But within a year of the band moving to New York in 1940, the trio broke up and left Rogers's band, having found husbands. She married trumpeter, Ralf Scaffidi in 1942 and had her own radio program on NBC in 1948.
Mary didn't make many records, but those she waxed are incredible.
On the following track, Oops My Lady, she sounds particularly Charlie Christian like; her style reflects the bite and snap in the Benny Goodman Orchestra's guitarist's playing and adapts it into her own sound.
Love Mary's 1960 Warwick Records masterpiece A Girl & Her Guitar. Rocking the 6-string with authority are Mary Osborne (lead) and New Orleans legend Danny Barker (rhythm), backed by Tommy Flanagan (piano), Tommy Potter (bass) and stalwart from Count Basie Orchestra and Lester Young Quintet recordings and tours "Papa Jo" Jones on drums.
Mary played on most of an album by quite the duo of power-packed percussionists: The Mighty Two - Gene Krupa and Louis Bellson.
Ace pianist, bandleader and host of the outstanding NPR radio program Piano Jazz Marian McPartland pays tribute.
Don't know if any recordings exist of Mary Osborne making the jazz guitar sing on The Jack Sterling Show on NBC radio, or of her appearances on the Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts TV show.
The Mary Osborne IMDB page, is wrong regarding the number of Art Ford’s Jazz Party appearances, claims she was on the 1949 Adventures In Jazz series and ABC-TV's late-night program The Joey Bishop Show. Don't know if Mary made any other television appearances. Maybe video footage of these programs does not exist.
While there are not very many instances of Mary Osborne records in the 1960's and 1970's, luckily Ms. McPartland induced her to join an all-star band on one of her albums and record the following tres cool versions of "In A Mellow Tone" and "Now's The Time" live at the Monticello Room in Rochester, NY on June 30, 1977.
Mary and her husband relocated to Bakersfield, CA in the early 1960's and formed a company, first known as Rosac Electronics Company, then Osborne Guitar Company and Osborne Sound Laboratories, that built guitars, electric basses and amplifiers. I'll bet these guitars sound great.
For more info, read, in addition to the aforementioned article by David Brent Johnson (prolific jazz program host of WFIU Public Radio), the following musical career overview and bio penned by Jim Carlton for Vintage Guitar.com.
“Aleman has more swing than any other guitarist on the continent.” Leonard Festher
"I knew Django Reinhardt well. He was my greatest friend in France. We played together many times, just for ourselves. I used to go to his wagon, where he lived. I've slept and eaten there—and also played! He had three or four guitars. Django never asked anyone to go to his wagon, but he made an exception with me. I appreciated him, and I believe the feeling was mutual." Oscar Alemán
Switching focus from silent films and vintage animation - frequent topics of this blog - to the world of music, today the spotlight is on Argentinian guitar virtuoso and entertainer Oscar Alemán, born on this day in 1909.
Have listened to and admired such terrific Alemán records as En Todos Los Ritmos, Alemán '72 and Grabaciones Recuperadas, as well as the Swing Guitar Masterpieces: 1938-1957 compilation mandolinist, bandleader and recording artist David Grisman curated for his Acoustic Disc label.
Still, was entirely unaware of the guitarist's dramatic roller coaster life and international presence in music until viewing Oscar Alemán, Vida Con Swing, a loving, detailed and archival footage-packed 2002 documentary written and directed by Hernán Gaffet.
A singer, dancer and actor as well as multi-instrumentalist, Oscar Marcelo Alemán (February 20, 1909 - October 14, 1980) was a one of a kind talent, born in Machagai, Chaco Province, in northern Argentina.
An entertainer, recording artist and teacher for five decades, Oscar experienced the loftiest of international stardom peaks and devastating no-work-whatsoever valleys. It is such a rich showbiz tale that we can only touch on a few points here, unless the objective is to not actually complete this blog post until February 20, 2023 or 2024.
Oscar's early life entailed so much adversity, grinding poverty and personal tragedy as to make Charlie Chaplin's childhood look like Sunday in the Park (with or without George). Both were child performers, Oscar already singing and dancing onstage with the family band, the Moreira Sextet, at the age of six. He was orphaned suddenly when his mother died and his father subsequently committed suicide. Oscar's siblings scattered and he would find himself homeless and living on the streets in Santos, São Paulo, Brazil. Supporting himself as a dancer, boxer and by playing the cavinhuelo (a four-stringed instrument) and guitar, he began to play music professionally in a duo with Brazilian guitarist Gaston Bueno Lobo. Oscar's first radio show appearance in 1926, rather amazingly, has been preserved
As Les Loups (Los Lobos), the duo played popular tunes in many genres, with Oscar frequently playing Hawaiian guitar, and recorded sides for Victor in 1927-1928, then, with the addition of violinist Elvino Vardaro, Trio Victor. Before he turned 20, Alemán was a prolific recording artist.
In the late 1920's and early 1930's, Oscar would become interested in playing American jazz after hearing the guitar-violin duo of Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti.
In 1931, he became the featured guitarist in Josephine Baker's touring ensemble. Soon, he would lead her band, the Baker Boys, at the Cafe de Paris. Duke Ellington saw Oscar play and was floored. When he asked Josephine if he could hire Oscar Alemán for the Duke Ellington Orchestra's next United States tour, she said no; to paraphrase her response, "where could I find someone who speaks nine languages, can dance, is black, plays guitar, cavaquinho, bass and drums - and is a good person?" Nonetheless, Oscar sat in as a special guest with the Duke Ellington Orchestra and performed with them for individual concerts in Europe.
Alemán later formed his own nine-piece band which would play nightly at the Le Chantilly, just across town from where Django Reinhardt and his partner violinist Stephane Grappelli would be performing at The Hot Club of France with their Quintet. Although these two innovative virtuosos of jazz guitar from outside the United States, unfortunately, never recorded together, they became close friends.
After the Nazis stormed into Paris, banning "degenerate" music and all art in favor of their preferred pastime of murdering people, Oscar relocated to Buenos Aires. Through the 1940's, he performed and waxed some of his best recordings with an excellent swing quintet, featuring jazz violinist Guillermo Oliva, and also performed with a nine-piece orchestra.
He enjoyed playing in Buenos Aires and turned down invitations from bandleaders such as Harry James to join their groups and travel to the United States.
Oscar Alemán appeared periodically in films (Trois Argentines a Montmartre, Buenos Aires Sings) and was quite the dynamic performer, as seen in the following clips. Among the few memorable scenes of the potboiler El idolo del Tango: Oscar's rousing performance as guitarist, dancer, singer and showman.
A comprehensive Oscar Alemán bio and discography by Norwegian jazz critic Jan Evensmo was posted on the excellent Jazz Archeology website. Lots and lots of related material on Oscar Alemán, including transcripts from television appearances and radio interviews, is up on YouTube, among quite a bit of excellent Argentinian jazz. Alemán's appearances on Buenos Aires television are numerous and soundtracks from them turn up on YouTube.
The guitar giant's music is still being played and celebrated. An Oscar Alemán Play-Along Songbook Volume 1 was published in 2019 and the Argentinian version of The Real Book concentrates heavily on the Alemán repertoire. For musicians, these are fitting addendums to Hernán Gaffet's film.
Must tip one of Oscar's stylish hats to the late Hans Koert, who devoted a blog to him and was a key link to guitar enthusiasts and Oscar fans worldwide.
In conclusion, it's good to know that Oscar's granddaughter, vocalist Jorgelina Alemán, is carrying on the family tradition in the 21st century and has organized tributes to him. Here she is, singing one of her grandfather's signature tunes, Hombre MÃo.
First and foremost, a few notes about this sputtering “all of the above” blog, which covers screenings/events, silent movies, animation, film noir, psychotronic Z-movies, sometimes music (mostly modern jazz, swing, blues, r&b and rock - am not knowledgeable enough to post about other genres). We're sputtering but, remarkably, still going at 1183 posts.
Once we started singing that ditty Along Came Coronavirus, invariably off-key, the masterminds behind this blog pretty much posted exclusively about online events, but almost never about psychotronic cinema (with the exception of KFJC Psychotronix Film Fest offshoots at the Orinda Theatre). There have been more silent movie events on Zoom that we can cover, but not much on the 1950's sci-fi and low-budget flicks we love.
That is due to the fact that, of all the celluloid genres mentioned here, the wonders of Del Tenney, Edward D. Wood, Jr. and Irv Berwick MUST be seen in a theatrical setting with an audience. Zoom events simply will not suffice.
Only like watching Z-flicks on TV or MacBook as part of a Mystery Science Theater 3000, RiffTrax and Cinema Insomnia binge. These well-intentioned kernels of entertainment, which are not bad movies, just misunderstood, demand not just an audience but an enthusiastic and preferably loud one. All of these shows have YouTube channels.
Speaking of Dana Gould and Plan 9 from Outer Space . . .
Have posted numerous times about film noir and the Noir City film festival, so, while we miss a night watching hard-boiled noir thrillers on the big screen tremendously, it has been great to watch the Noir City SF YouTube channel through 2020-2021 lockdown.
Every Thursday, Eddie Muller a.k.a. The Czar Of Noir and the Film Noir Foundation's Anne Hockens talk noir and neo-noir movies, as well as noir fiction and answer viewer questions. Here’s the July 15, 2021 edition of Ask Eddie - enjoy.
We strongly recommend following this with a trip to the Ask Eddie Broadcast Archives for past episodes. Eddie, Anne and their cats make it a fun watch.
Fortunately, commentaries by Looney Tunes Critic and Anthony’s Animation Talk guest Trevor Thompson a.k.a. Ferris Wheelhouse remain. Trevor promotes his YouTube channel as “not your grandfather’s commentaries”, and, as this animation buff is at least 30 years older than both Anthony and Trevor, the at times in your face attitude of the latter’s videos can rub this cartoon nut the wrong way. Don't recall specifically WHICH posts bugged me, in all honesty. Since I enjoy the no-holds-barred satire of Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor, George Carlin and other standup philosophers, this reaction remains a bit mystifying.
So disregard the tone, say “dag nab it” and “you kids get off my lawn” three times, then check the Looney Tunes Critic's informative and entertaining commentaries out. You may agree with the analysis, you may disagree. Who cares? Watch and enjoy!
As card-carrying guitar geeks at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, we talk guitarists frequently and note that today, July 18, is the birthday of Gibson Flying V virtuoso Lonnie Mack (1941-2016), one of the key links between Delta blues and rock n'roll.
Lonnie is one of the answers to the question of who is on the short list of American guitarists who, like Buddy Guy and Otis Rush, were not just listened to but studied note-for-note by British rockers.
Electric bass ace, Parliament-Funkadelic/Bootsy's Rubber Band stalwart and funkateer Bootsy Collins elaborates on the sound, songs and records of Lonnie Mack.
Closing today's post: a very entertaining analysis of a 1986 performance by guitar slingers Stevie Ray Vaughn & Lonnie Mack by Fil from Wings Of Pegasus. The ever-cheerful, knowledgeable and insightful British rock guitarist ranks near the top of the list of Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog's favorite YouTube posters; his commentaries covering far-flung musicians in varied genres - and not just guitar players - are a pleasure to watch. Watching Lonnie and Stevie tear it up, Fil is fantastic as usual. We wish him much success in his musical endeavors.
All this blues-influenced music is making me hungry! Time for a KFC bowl. Luckily, a cardiologist is free with each order.
Starting the week with string swing by Robin Nolan and Jimmy Rosenberg, who presented a concert on YouTube yesterday.
As key exponents of Django's music, Robin and Jimmy have played together for years.
It's always great to hear Jimmy play and to even better see his re-emergence, at the top of his game, after an absence from the scene.
Jimmy burst upon the music world in the 1980's as a guitar prodigy who impressively mastered the entire Reinhardt/Grappelli/Hot Club of France songbook at a tender age.
We're enthusiastic swing guitar fans, so the Monday listening cue at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog will be filled with the best of the best gypsy jazz ambassadors, while also highly recommending the music of Django's friend, contemporary and fellow guitarist, Argentinian entertainer Oscar Alemán.
We also dearly love The Rosenberg Trio - lead guitarist Stochelo Rosenberg, rhythm guitarist Nous'che Rosenberg and bassist Nonnie Rosenberg - the cousins of Jimmy.
They are outstanding.
The incomparable Django Reinhardt passed on May 16, 1953 - and would very likely be tickled by how, over 90 years after he began his musical career, the sound of The Hot Club Of France would be not just celebrated around the world, but more popular than ever.
The last two posts were about guitarists, so this one will attempt to follow the six string into movies.
Funny, very few movies with "guitar" featured prominently in the title actually show someone playing one, as Jerry Reed does beautifully here.
In Nicholas Ray's indescribable and gender-bending Trucolor western Johnny Guitar, the guitar is emblematic of the character portrayed by Sterling Hayden - and we really want to see him rock out on that axe he's been lugging around.
Of course, if there was an axe in Johnny Guitar, either Joan Crawford or Mercedes McCambridge would plant it in your forehead.
We'll kick this pickin' post off with a couple of cartoons from the Tom & Jerry series created by the production unit led by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. When it comes to cartoons prominently featuring country-western pickers, Pecos Pest is the Tom & Jerry cartoon that immediately comes to mind. Was it Hanna, Barbera or animators Irv Spence, Ken Muse, Ed Barge and Ray Patterson who were the guitar player and/or country-western music and singing cowboy enthusiasts in that MGM cartoon studio crew?
A key running joke in the Tom & Jerry series involves Jerry Mouse interfering with Tom's best efforts at wooing the gals. In Solid Serenade, Tom plays the upright bass and sings Louis Jordan (the r&b/swing guy of Tympani 5 fame, not the star of Gigi) tunes. Tom doesn't succeed in that cartoon or in the following one. The question is, what country-western star of the day is Tom impersonating in Texas Tom?
One would think numerous jokes about guitar-playing could be found in classic cartoons, but most often this entails only a few seconds of screen time, as is the case with the musical Tex Avery cartoon The Magical Maestro or Bugs Bunny whipping out an acoustic guitar for a single gag in the classic cartoon Slick Hare, directed by Friz Freleng.
A later classic from Friz Freleng and his crew at Warner Brothers, The Three Little Bops, made in 1957, features music by Shorty Baker and story/voice work by Stan Freberg - and, naturally, a brief guitar solo is offered by one of the porcine multi-instrumentalist hipsters who play everything.
Many musical acts appeared in one-reelers such as the Lee Deforest Phonofilms, Vitaphone Varieties and Fox Movietone Musicals in the early years of talkies.
Arguably the first string-meister to whip out a guitar in movies was Roy Smeck, the "Wizard Of The Strings," who made cinematic and sound waves with his Hawaiian guitar in several Vitaphone Varieties, beginning in 1926.
Columbia Pictures made a memorable musical short subject starring country-western star Jimmie Rodgers, a.k.a. The Singing Brakeman.
The first popular guitarist to be seen in feature films was the great Eddie Lang (1902-1933). The guitarist's segment with violinist Joe Venuti in Universal's epic early talkie musical King Of Jazz is still pretty darn astonishing almost 90 years later.
Eddie has some great tunes in The Big Broadcast with songstress Ruth Etting and, soon to be the biggest musical act in show business, Bing Crosby.
Even more stunning than Eddie Lang appearing in movies: a major Paramount Pictures star, Mae West, seen strumming a guitar in Klondike Annie. It doesn't look like Mae is actually playing those tasty single-note lines and chords - there's another guitarist offscreen - but the song and her vocal sound great. Makes one wish she accompanied herself on a musical instrument in more of her movies; after all, Mae mastered everything she tried.
Not long after Bing Crosby and Mae West became movie stars at Paramount in the early 1930's, the phenomenon of the singing cowboys hit the silver screen. Gene Autry was first, soon followed by Roy Rogers, not the current slide guitar ace but the movies' King Of The Cowboys.
A certain young man from Tupelo was a big fan of the singing cowboys and their music - Elvis Aaron Presley.
Of the many feature films Elvis Presley starred in - and he sings and dances in every one - there are few in which he actually plays the guitar, as he does so often in his TV appearances.
Elvis delivers vocal and guitar heroics - while looking great in a suit - in Viva Las Vegas (co-starring with the always formidable Ann-Margret).
Elvis gives us a bit of guitar as well in arguably his best feature film, King Creole, directed by none other than Michael Curtiz.
Elvis also rocks out on the acoustic guitar in G.I. Blues.
Presley's rockabilly contemporaries Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran beat Elvis to the punch, rocking out (as did Little Richard) in The Girl Can't Help It, an amazing musical time capsule and satire of 1950's mores and pop culture directed by Frank Tashlin.
Back to the singing cowboys, Roy Rogers was the rare movie star who could ride, rope, do stunts, sing and play the guitar!
Long after his silver screen and TV careers ended, Roy, along with his intrepid wife and co-star Dale Evans and the never surpassed Badass of the Movie Steeds, Trigger, would wow the crowds at rodeos, county fairs and western movie festivals coast to coast. Both singing cowboys appeared on Late Night With David Letterman (NBC version). Roy, fittingly, finished off his guest appearance with a rendition of "Happy Trails."
Happy Trails to all of you from Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog!
Continuing the thread from the last post, as the following caricature of Django Reinhardt from The Triplets Of Belleville illustrates, we're talking guitarists.
As titled, today's post is devoted to "string swing" - and Django's batting leadoff with some Swing 39.
After Swing 39, it's time for some Swing 42!
Guitar virtuoso Hank Marvin made history, going back to the 1950's days of skiffle, backing British pop star Cliff Richard and personifying classic rock n' roll with his band The Shadows and subsequent groups. The versatile guitarist, 77 and still performing, also plays killer gypsy jazz. He has blazed trails on the guitar in the 20th and 21st centuries.
A guitarist much influenced by Hank Marvin & The Shadows, Tommy Emmanuel, made an appearance in last Sunday's post on jazz-classical guitar genius Lenny Breau, so here he is, with fellow string-meisters Richard Smith and Jim Nichols at the Chet Atkins convention in The Land Of Chet Atkins, Nashville.
Are here's Tommy with frequent collaborator - they made a terrific album together titled The Colonel & The Governor - Martin Taylor.
Been known to binge-watch music clips involving this dynamic duo.
Martin Taylor is yet another virtuoso on the short list of astonishingly good guitarists.
Tommy, Frank and Vinny outdo themselves in the following performance.
Frank's duo with Martin Taylor on "Cherokee" is equally wonderful.
Bringing a post devoted to "swingin' on a six string" full circle, seems fitting to send this out with some more Django - and also recommend checking out some cool Django Reinhardt playlists on YouTube, organized by year.
It would appear that the poster, Mr. Becker, who we think might be a friend of the Reinhardt family, has access to numerous lesser known concerts, airchecks and radio broadcasts the guitar ace did after World War II.
Django always sounds great to the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog.
