Whose the best at:?????

Lango-Django

Sèbastien Ginaux is mighty good too!

Ditto that... I saw him in Paris and he was f@#$%^ awesome.

He and the other guitarist, another thirtyish guy who was also a wonderful player, played some amazing stuff, a lot of it wasn't gypsy jazz... "A Whole New World" from the Disney movie "Aladdin" and a lengthy patriotic French song called "Toulouse"... beautiful and unforgettable.

I saw Adrien Moignard play at Django in June in 2008, and thought he was pretty amazing, but if you watch a few YouTube videos of Adrien and Sebastien playing together, well, you can form your own conclusions...

Warning: both of these cats are definitely in the category of "players who inspire you to burn your guitar and piss on the ashes"...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xXob3iHcmk

kungfumonk007

Definitely - best rhythm player ought to be #8 with possible sub categories of latin or swing.

Teddy Dupont

Michael Horowitz wrote:

Well...in 1935 the winner for all of those categories would have been DJANGO!

And in most of those categories, it is still Django. Bireli Lagrene is more "technically virtuosic" than Django simply because he has more fingers although I still feel Django was technically "more perfect". However, Django fails bitterly in category 4.

Jazzaferri

Baro Ferret said that technically he was as good as Django but it was Django's musical mind that he found so imposing.

Not very many people in musical history have founded a genre of music on their own...

As I think about it I can't think of any other individual.....anyone else

Sorry for the hijack ....I must have an allergic reaction to the best of anything in the arts.....

GJ players I love however On lead that easily come to mind.

Stochelo, Birelli, Adrien M, Fapy, Sebastian, Benoit, Gonzalo,

The only post Django individual that I have knowingly heard a "composition" by is Sebastian although together Benoit and Olivier have done some lovely duet work. I am not knowledgeable enough on Adrien M to know for certain....his duet lines are to my ear lovely, how much is his own perhaps others will know. For me, his Two for the Road is such an evocative piece.

Bones

Oh yeah, Adrien Moignard for sure and Olivier Kikteff of course would be in there somewhere.

That's why it is tough and I hesitate to even mention names.

Teddy, but when Django was under 25 I bet NO ONE could even come close....

Teddy Dupont

Jazzaferri wrote:

Baro Ferret said that technically he was as good as Django.....

But he wasn't.

Bones wrote:

Teddy, but when Django was under 25 I bet NO ONE could even come close....

That's a fact but he's long since been past 25.

Jazzaferri

I never heard a recording of Baro playing lead when he was at the height of his career. What can I say

scot

If you compare (for example) "Dinalie Mineur" and "and "Nuages" it's obvious that, though they were friends and contemporaries, Django and Baro were completely different in their musical thinking.

As for this list, I find it sad that whenever we talk about modern players, there is very little mention of elegance, style and musicality - the qualities that so defined Django and kept him famous for all these years. I note that technique (speed) is at the top of the list. Have technique and speed replaced style and musicality? Is that a good thing?

"Not very many people in musical history have founded a genre of music on their own... As I think about it I can't think of any other individual.....anyone else" Well, there is Bill Monroe.

Teddy Dupont

scot wrote:

As for this list, I find it sad that whenever we talk about modern players, there is very little mention of elegance, style and musicality - the qualities that so defined Django and kept him famous for all these years.

Totally agree.

scot wrote:

I note that technique (speed) is at the top of the list. Have technique and speed replaced style and musicality?

Yes.

scot wrote:

Is that a good thing?

No.

kungfumonk007

Come on guys, it was a just for fun conversation starter, nothing to get sad about.

People talk about musicality and expression all the time. I just did a search for just "musicality" and 4 pages popped up. You can't measure musicality though, and the order of the list was irrelevant, I was just shooting ideas off the top of my head.

Technique and speed aren't contrary to musicality, in fact they are necessary preconditions to the best musicality as you will ALWAYS be limited in your communication to whatever your actual level of technical ability is. The whole Technique vs Musicality is something of a false dilemma. Besides speed is measurable, musicality is not, so that is why "who is the fastest" is a far easier question then "who is the most expressive."