Remembering Django Reinhardt

Today, music lovers around the world celebrate the natal anniversary of guitarist Django Reinhardt.





Django, the Belgian-born Romani jazz musician was born to swing that guitar on January 23, 1910.



Django was inspired by the music of Louis Armstrong.



With violinist Stephane Grappelli, Django co-led Western Europe's supreme source of scintillating swing, the Quintette Of The Hot Club Of France.



We'll kick this off with a few film clips of the guitar genius in action.






Numerous Django concerts, airchecks and radio broadcasts have been posted on YouTube. Thanks to music historisn Heinz Becker, here are superlative playlists featuring The Quintette Of The Hot Club Of France:

• 1934
• 1935
• 1936
• 1937

As well as playlists from Django's later stretch co-leading ensembles with swing clarinetist Hubert Rostaing

• 1948
• 1949
• 1951
• 1952
• 1953

Django briefly toured with The Duke Ellington Orchestra in the fall of 1946.









Among the guitar slingers who carry on the Django tradition in 2026: Martin Taylor (from the 1980's Stephane Grappelli Quartet), Julian Lage, Robin Nolan, Biréli Lagrène, Tommy Emmanuel, Frank Vignola and Vinny Ragiolo.

And This Blog Loves Guitar Genius Mary Osborne

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.

She contributed brilliant jazz guitar to The Beryl Booker Trio, Coleman Hawkins' 52nd Street All Stars, Stuff Smith, and bandleader/pianist/composer Mary Lou Williams.



In the 1940's, she also led her own group, The Mary Osborne Trio, which even sounds fabulous on scratchy 78s!







First read about her on the excellent Unsung Women Of Jazz and Jazz Women Advocates websites. Let's hear more of her sonorous six-string superheroics!





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.



Here, in its entirety, is the September 18, 1958 episode of Art Ford’s Jazz Party.



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.

Top Hat Tips to Rita, Cozy & Barney

The customary Sunday blog post, asking who was born and what movies/animated cartoons were released theatrically on a given day, notes that today, October 17, is the natal anniversary of several mighty music and film immortals. Paramount (but not Universal) among them: movie star Rita Hayworth, Brooklyn-born in 1918.

While we regret not doing a post to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Rita's birth, but, what the hey, better three years late than never. We'll start some examples of Rita's astonishingly good terpsichorean skills.







Too bad she was under contract to Columbia Pictures as opposed to MGM, which was far superior in making the movie musicals that were clearly the strong suit of Rita Hayworth. Still, it's fantastic that she co-starred with none other than Fred Astaire in You'll Never Get Rich and You Were Never Lovelier.



The Shorty George number is a tour-de-force for both Astaire and Hayworth.



While moviegoers in the 1940's and early 1950's, unfortunately, never got to see Rita Hayworth star in a spectacular Vincente Minnelli-directed musical produced by Arthur Freed and written by Betty Comden & Adolph Green, at least Rita starred in the 1944 musical Cover Girl for Columbia Pictures. While Cover Girl, co-starring Gene Kelly and comedian Phil Silvers, is the closest thing to an MGM spectacular to emerge from Columbia, again, it's a darn shame that Rita didn't then follow Gene to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the incomparable "Freed Unit."



Rita made her name as the femme fatale to end all femme fatales in the famous 1946 film Gilda.



The super-sultry "Put The Blame On Mame" number set Rita's destiny as Hollywood movie star and pin-up girl.



The stars of Gilda were re-united in The Loves Of Carmen two years later. By far, the most memorable part of this movie is Rita’s outstanding Sevillanas dancing. If only The Loves Of Carmen was dominated by her great dancing.



The Hayworth-Ford pairing from Gilda and The Loves Of Carmen would be repeated a few years later for Affair In Trinidad. Have mixed emotions about the trailer and the movie; seeing Glenn Ford slap Rita in the face onscreen, knowing the history of violent abuse Rita suffered off-screen, gives this Hayworth and classic film fan the creeps. We sincerely hope Glenn didn't treat her like this in their off-screen relationship.



As is also typical of the MGM musicals, Rita's singing is dubbed, in this case by Jo Ann Greer. Her singing in Gilda was dubbed by Anita Ellis.



Alas, it was not Rita Hayworth's destiny to star in a slew of movie musicals like Ginger Rogers, Eleanor Powell or Vera-Ellen, but to be a noir babe and give Lauren Bacall a serious run for her money in the sultry sexy department. Her ultimate role as a noir babe was her turn in the hallucinogenic Orson Welles thriller The Lady From Shanghai.



An all-time favorite film of the noiristas who populate Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, The Lady From Shanghai is inexplicable, highly imaginative and unapologetically bizarre in a way only an Orson Welles flick can be. It was produced in 1946 while the Welles-Hayworth marriage was disintegrating and its noir thriller meets funhouse mirror sensibility was not exactly accepted from moviegoing audiences when the film was finally released theatrically in 1948.



Still, The Lady From Shanghai has numerous fans in Noir Universe and has been . We much admire the combo of audacity and sheer WTF factor in Orson Welles movies and don't care how bizarre his films or imagery get. It goes with the territory. Peter Bogdanovich, a good friend of Orson's, elaborates on this film's tangled tale.



We would argue that Rita, although she literally married princes, hitmaking crooners, studio heads and creative geniuses, deserved better. She made a number of movies after the 1957 vehicle Pal Joey, but to some degree the Sinatra vehicle was Rita's last hurrah on the big screen. RIta's character in Pal Joey is the right age for Sinatra's character but, by 1957, Kim Novak was the glamour gal getting Columbia's star buildup.



Sadly, Ms. Hayworth passed in 1987 after a lengthy battle with Alzheimer's Disease. One of her last appearances was on The Carol Burnett Show, not surprisingly, as Ms. Burnett was always a champion of the golden age of Hollywood and old school showbiz. While Rita subsequently made a few appearances in films, the Carol Burnett Show guest appearance could be regarded as the curtain call for this great star of movies.





Shifting from glamorous Hollywood movie stars of yore to the world of music, on the topic of Gentlemen Of Swing, we turn to the incomparable power-packed percussionist Cozy Cole on his natal anniversary.

Cozy was a contemporary of innovative swing-era drummers Gene Krupa, Jo Jones, Chick Webb, Big Sid Catlett and Dave Tough.



These swinging percussionists who hit the music scene after the 1920's emergence of the Duke Ellington Orchestra's Sonny Greer and Baby Dodds from King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band and Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven.



One can hear the tempo-pushing bravado of subsequent drummer-bandleaders Buddy Rich and Art Blakey in Cozy's playing.



And staying on the topic of Gentlemen Of Swing, disregarding the misspelling on the album cover.)

We switch from a propulsive and ready to rock drummer to one of the all-time guitar greats who followed and extended the swing music innovations of Eddie Lang, Django Reinhardt and Charle Christian: the celebrated "Wrecking Crew" studio ace and jazz master Barney Kessel. After establishing himself professionally with the Charlie Barnet and Jerry Gray Orchestras, Mr. Kessel appeared in the Gjon Mili "midnight symphony" short subject Jammin' The Blues, featuring an all-star ensemble of swing era luminaries



Kessel would, before and after his stretch as an ace studio musician, make recordings as a leader and play numerous jazz concerts, including Gene Norman Presents "Just Jazz".









Prior to joining The Wrecking Crew, Mr. Kessel was, along with the equally talented Herb Ellis, one of two guitarists who rotated in the Verve Records "house band," which included pianist Oscar Peterson, bassist Ray Brown and either Alvin Stoller or Louis Bellson on drums. The house band played on a slew of recordings produced for the Verve, Clef and Norgran labels by Norman Granz.

They backed the best of the best: Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Carter, Stuff Smith, Blossom Dearie, Billie Holiday and more.

On the series of Verve recordings of Fred Astaire singing numerous standards he debuted on Broadway and Hollywood, this house band was joined by trumpeter Charlie Shavers and saxophonist Flip Phillips.

Sometimes Barney and Herb, both of whom filled the esteemed guitar chair in the Oscar Peterson Trio, appeared together.



There were three ace guitarists in The Wrecking Crew, the virtuosos who played on a gazillion recordings waxed in the 1960's and 1970's: Barney Kessel, Glen Campbell, Tommy Tedescho. Tommy's son Danny made the excellent The Wrecking Crew documentary, a must-see for music lovers.



We also suggest checking out the Barney Kessel playlist and a Barney Kessel YouTube channel. As of now, several of his albums as a leader can be heard on YouTube: Barney Kessel's Swingin' Party on Contemporary, One Note Samba with Barney Kessel, Trio!, Feeling Free and The Gypsy's Hip.



No doubt the Kessel and Cozy Cole recordings can be found on Spotify as well, but old school music fans like this blogger recommend purchasing albums by these Gentlemen Of Swing on CD or vinyl, or paid streaming.

Sunday String Swing

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.



First became of Martin when he was, in the 1980's, the guitarist with none other than Stéphane Grappelli, jazz violinist supreme and co-founder with Django Reinhardt of The Hot Club of France.



Another guitarist who plays duos with and teaches workshops with Martin is Robin Nolan.



As well as Julian Lage.





Prominent in gypsy jazz since the early 1980's: guitarist and bassist Biréli Lagrène.





And, without fail, must mention two guitarists Mr. Emmanuel has worked with as a trio, Frank Vignola and Vinny Ragiolo.



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.

Happy Birthday to 20th Century jazz great Lenny Breau!

"Lenny Breau was the best guitarist to ever shit between two boots." Jerry Reed

"Lenny was a comet passing through" Chet Atkins

"If you had dropped a bomb on the place that night you'd have wiped out all the guitar players in the world. They were all down there, from Howard Roberts to George Van Eps to Joe Pass... He conquered Hollywood because we all loved him as a player and we loved him as a person." Carol Kaye



Lenny Breau (1941-1984) was an original and astounding musician, a genius of finger style guitar and one of the greats of the 20th century.



While there have been many brilliant guitarists, from Django Reinhardt to Barney Kessel to Tal Farlow to Herb Ellis to George Benson to Joe Pass to Wes Montgomery to Kenny Burrell to Roy Clark and Hank Garland, only Lenny Breau could delve deeply into a Chet Atkins + J.S. Bach + Bill Evans place.



He could bring the sound of The Bill Evans Trio to the guitar like no another string-master, before or since.



Lenny could nail jazz, country-western, classical, flamenco, you name it, with great sensitivity.





He does more with harmonics alone than most guitar slingers do with 6 (or 7 or 12) strings and 23 frets!



I'll make sure to watch the following YouTube clips of Lenny Breau and the aforementioned guitar genius Tal Farlow playing unbelievably great music together today!



Tommy Emmanuel, in many respects the musician who has carried on and extended the innovative ideas originated by Lenny Breau into the 21st century, reminisces: "I met Lenny in 1980, at Chets' office. The 3 of us jammed for hours then I took Lenny to where he was playing that night. I carried his guitar and amp for him and set it up on the stage. Then I sat at the side and listened intently as Lenny played his way through a set of Jazz standards with a depth and such feeling that I could barely contain my tears and sheer delight in his wonderful soloing. I have never heard anyone do what he did that night, it was a miracle in my eyes! If you've never heard Lenny Breau, then get his "Live at Shelly's Mann Hole " album..Or play Lenny and Chets' version of "Sweet Georgia Brown". It will tell you so much about his brilliance...Tommy CGP."



Lenny's daughter Emily Hughes has produced two documentaries about her father.



The two films can be purchased or rented at lennybreau.com.



Thanks to the research and archive-digging involved in the making of these documentaries, never before seen footage of Lenny, such as the following, continues to turn up.



Here, Tommy Emmanuel pays tribute to Lenny Breau with some remembrances and this terrific song. Enjoy!



And enjoy Lenny Breau's records, too!



While the ace guitarist, as Wes and Django did, left this planet WAY too soon, at least, largely due to the excellent work and steadfast support of his friend and mentor Chet Atkins, Lenny waxed quite a few outstanding records. The following duo with clarinetist Brad Terry, The Complete Living Room Tapes, is one of his best.



To that, we music aficionados at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog say Mo' Breau, please.

John McLaughlin & Larry Coryell, 1979

And This Blog Loves Wes Montgomery

Has there ever been a jazz guitar player who surpassed the musical brilliance of Wes Montgomery? Ever (yes, even right now in November 2013)?





Well, one could argue that several - Lenny Breau and Jim Hall in particular - at least came close to equalling him, but none were better at making that guitar sing than the incomparable Wes Montgomery.





Luckily, a fair amount of video footage of Wes exists. Here's more - enjoy.

More Golden FIngers And Fun On The Frets For January 2012

My guess is, in the immortal words of John Lennon, the following guys, guitar virtuosos all, have "blisters on their fingers", although more discreetly than he did.






While the legendary Django Reinhardt, by all accounts, loathed playing the electric guitar during his 1946 performances with The Duke Ellington Orchestra, I've always wondered how those gigs sounded. As it turns out, the recordings from them have circulated, and are available, due to the wonder of YouTube. The answer to that question is. . . "gadzooks - this is indescribably wonderful", as well as signature Django.





Listen and learn.

The Golden Fingers Of Hank Garland And His Successors

Yesterday's posting about Peter Frampton regaining his long-lost favorite guitar after 31 years led my music-obsessed subconscious directly to another guy who knew his way around a custom Gibson: the incredible Hank Garland, ace session guitarist on recordings by Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline and Roy Orbison and more.

In this clip from Country Style, U.S.A., Hank's distinctive "country jazz" radiates joie de vivre while demonstrating awe-inspiring guitar mastery.

Hank Garland's bouyant music brings to mind one other album for me: the 1993 pairing of jazz guitar guru Joe Pass and veteran country-western entertainer Roy Clark.


 
Joe and Roy's summit meeting of serious pickin' and grinnin' over the simple yet supple, challenging and enduring music of Hank Williams, Sr. recalls a certain phrase again: Joie De Vivre.

The Jazz Guitar Genius Of Eddie Lang

Before Django, before Oscar Alemán, before Charlie Christian, there was Eddie Lang.



Trained as a violinist, the Philadelphia-born Lang switched to banjo and guitar and, after a prominent role in the popular Mound City Blue Blowers, ultimately became New York City's studio ace with the OKeh, Columbia and Victor record labels - in a role not dissimilar from fellow "house guitarists" Barney Kessel and Herb Ellis at Norman Granz' Verve Records a quarter century later - working with recording artists of diverse styles and persuasions.

Using the nom-de-plume Blind Willie Dunn in those 1920's days of segregation, Eddie played guitar with Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Lonnie Johnson and many more jazz and blues innovators.

When the guitarist joined the Jean Goldkette Orchestra, which also featured Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, he met Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer. The trio soon got down to business recording such Roaring Twenties classics as the following:

Arguably, Lang's best known musical partnership was with violinist Joe Venuti.

Here's a brief clip of the inspired Venuti/Lang duo - without a doubt, an enormous influence on The Hot Club Of France - from the "meet the band" segment of Universal Pictures' 1930 musical (and tribute to Whiteman), The King Of Jazz:



The following bit of Fun On The Frets features Eddie performing a beautifully arranged duo with another superb early jazz guitarist, Carl Kress.

Eddie, like The Boswell Sisters, had a guest shot in The Big Broadcast Of 1932. He plays his customary stellar guitar and shares the screen with Bing Crosby:



Unfortunately, in one of those pointless tragedies, Eddie Lang passed away on March 26, 1933 as a result of a botched tonsillectomy. Music fans are very lucky that he recorded prolifically.

This blog extends 21st century bravos and huzzahs to this trailblazer of jazz guitar.

If this piques your swingin' heart's interest, by all means read Sally-Ann Worsfold's excellent and comprehensive liner notes from The Quintessential Eddie Lang CD - and we thank those who create the Red Hot Jazz website for posting them.

Grant Green-Barney Kessel-Kenny Burrell

Jazz Rock Guitar Geek Rapture #1: T.J. Kirk Live At The Up And Down Club, 1994

Once upon a time in the early and mid-1990's, some amazing music was being played in San Francisco clubs on a regular basis. It was the closest thing to the heady days when giants from several musical eras and genres, the majority lacking U.S. recording contracts, were performing in Bay Area venues from Keystone Korner to the Mabuhay Gardens to Kimball's (San Francisco) and, later, Yoshi's and Koncepts Cultural Gallery, proving that both jazz and rock were alive and blazing if you knew exactly where to find it.

Here are a couple of excerpts from a set at The Up And Down Club by a remarkable group that was tearing it up in those San Francisco clubs, at times more than twice a week. Their original name was James T. Kirk, as they performed cross-pollinations of music by James Brown, Thelonious Monk and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, three of the aforementioned music giants. I don't remember specifically whether the lawyers of Paramount Pictures ("Star Trek" owners) complained, but the band subsequently (and soon) changed their name to "T.J. Kirk" - thus also recalling William Shatner's uber-cheesy 1980's cop show.







The band members - guitarists Charlie Hunter, Will Bernard, and John Schott, plus the equally creative and propulsive drummer Scott Amendola - all headed other stellar ensembles and still do, but truly wonderful things happened when the four hit that happy zone together onstage. I consider myself fortunate to have caught some of that magic in person.

For more, check out the liner notes for the last T.J. Kirk recording.

The spirits of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, James Brown, Thelonious Monk - and Jimi Hendrix - are smiling.

Burt Bacharach Day