Interesting Django reference

plankity · March 2006

I know we're supposed to abhor politics here but there is a link on a site I visit often called Crooks & Liars that skews the neo-cons and pundits in the US media with their own words: common targets are Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh...

Anywho: today, they have a link to the 1938 Hot Club clip with a few words about DR --
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/03/03.html#a7375

maybe there's hope? Several people have commented there how refreshing it is to NOT be all politics ALL the time!

best,
N--

Josh Hegg · March 2006

Thanks for the link. Good article.

Cheers,
Josh

trumbology · March 2006

Thanks from me as well. Some good points succinctly made. I liked this paragraph:

Any musicians who read this, go back and listen to Django. Don't get sucked in to the whole "Gypsy Style" homage of many of his followers today, because that's not where his greatness lies. Instead, listen to the melody, the soul in the fingers. This guy played rock'n'roll, he got it. He could play that way because to him, the fretboard wasn't positions to riff over, but simply all the available notes. And he clearly knew where all the notes were.

I take that second sentence to mean that Django (and Stephane, where applicable) was trying to make enjoyable swing records for all listeners, just as Ellington, Armstrong, and others were doing, and don't see it as a big put-down to people like me reading this site. I know "sucked in" is a little pejorative, but I'm not offended. And the point about rock'n'roll--right on. We all know how raw and proto-rock sounding some of his Stimer-era solos are; nice to see someone else make that connection (I think the writer also thinks of the acoustic sides as being proto-rock and roll, too). Having all that melodic genius and that inner rawk-god leading him on...yep, that's why there is Django and then there is everybody else.

Kcox · March 2006

I think that paragraph is pointing out the rather obvious, arguing against what no one would (I hope) assert with a straight face.

Why would anyone think the greatness of Django lies in how many people have copped his riffs and pretended to his style? That's like saying someone saying the greatness of Neil Young is how many people play his songs at college coffeehouses, or the greatness of the Beatles is how many cover bands they have spawned, or the greatness of Johnny Cash is all the cash that that his biopic raked in.

trumbology · March 2006

Kcox wrote:

I think that paragraph is pointing out the rather obvious, arguing against what no one would (I hope) assert with a straight face.

Why would anyone think the greatness of Django lies in how many people have copped his riffs and pretended to his style? That's like saying someone saying the greatness of Neil Young is how many people play his songs at college coffeehouses, or the greatness of the Beatles is how many cover bands they have spawned, or the greatness of Johnny Cash is all the cash that that his biopic raked in.

I guess I'm so far gone into Django-ville that I have little perspective on what new listeners might think about this stuff.

But, say you knew nothing and stumbled onto one of the Bireli films out there, or a Rosenberg Trio record, you might get the impression that this music is a sort of swing cousin to fusion-y stuff like the Paco de Lucia, Al Di Meola & John McLaughlin trio (particularly if you aren't a jazz buff and don't recognize the standards in the repertoire). Or, on the other hand, if you first hear "scratchy old Django 78s" you might be taken aback by all that strumming and no high-hat marking out the beat. Just sounds weird on first listen (at least it did to me in my teens).

Also, I didn't take the writer to be saying that the sheer numbers of Gypsy -stylists should be taken with a grain of salt, but that the devotion to the Ferret-influenced, waltz-heavy repertoire was to be taken with a grain of salt (I think the writer was alluding to that familiar debate "was Django a jazz musician or a Gypsy jazz musician?")

Sorry to belabor all of this. I just liked the way the writer was trying to reach out to music fans who might have dismissed Django as something only for specialist guitar nerds.