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Various Causes of Death for Musicians of Different Genres

MichaelHorowitzMichaelHorowitz SeattleAdministrator
edited March 2015 in Welcome Posts: 6,179


More reasons to practice Gypsy Jazz: it considerably lowers your risk of accidental death and homicide! :D
Jon
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Comments

  • kungfumonk007kungfumonk007 ✭✭✭✭
    Posts: 421
    People who play the blues are not quite as unhappy as they let on :0)
    MichaelHorowitz
  • ScoredogScoredog Santa Barbara, Ca✭✭✭✭
    Posts: 900
    Who came up with this? Maybe I don't want to know.
  • bopsterbopster St. Louis, MOProdigy Wide Sky PL-1, 1940? French mystery guitar, ‘37 L-4
    Posts: 513
    Where would Syntax Baumgartner fit into this? Rap and Gypsy Jazz.
  • edited March 2015 Posts: 4,997
    Looks like you should start with Jazz right around the age of 5 before you ever saw a cigarette smoke, move on to Blues before the age of 9 and get to it while your heart is young, play world music during your teens so that you're avoiding any thoughts of suicide and gospel during your 20 as to stay away from any kind of dangerous weapons and then, and only then, when you're mature enough to contemplate the dooms of existence without terrible thoughts and finish a heated argument with an invite for a beer should you move up to metal and hip-hop/rap subsequently, and perhaps in your golden age rock out with some punk, by then drugs will just seem silly.

    Do this and live to be 100 as a musician!!
    MichaelHorowitzNone
    Every note wants to go somewhere-Kurt Rosenwinkel
  • Lango-DjangoLango-Django Niagara-On-The-Lake, ONModerator
    edited April 2015 Posts: 1,875
    stuart wrote: »
    The great guitarist Eddie Lang died young following complications from an operation to remove his tonsils. At the time he played guitar for Bing Crosby and with the advent of the talkies, so the story goes, Bing wanted Lang to have the operation to make it easier for him to have a speaking role in the film. Bing was devastated when Lang died. Years later, he decided to try and recapture the duets with Lang by recruiting Django for a US tour. Django collapsed and died the day after he heard about the invitation ....

    Hadn't heard that version of the story before, but as they say, "if it's not true, it should be!"

    Alas, there's not a whole lot of recorded footage of the great Eddie Lang playing solo behind Bing Crosby, but we do have this wonderful 1932 clip of him accompanying singer Ruth Etting on a Walter Donaldson tune, "Without That Man"



    As you will see and hear, Lang excelled at this type of solo accompaniment combining bass runs, chords and little lead fills, probably because of all the years he spent developing his unique style as the musical partner of his childhood friend jazz violinist Joe Venuti.

    We can only guess about what Django's approach to backing up Bing Crosby would have been, based upon his solo accompaniment of Stephane Grapelli... probably not very many bass runs? Probably more modern-sounding chords? Probably more little lead fills? Perhaps even occasional deliberate quotes of Eddie Lang's lines?

    Alas, we'll never really know...
    Paul Cezanne: "I could paint for a thousand years without stopping and I would still feel as though I knew nothing."

    Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."

    Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
  • Bob HoloBob Holo Moderator
    Posts: 1,252

    So if you're a careful, non-smoking, vegetarian jazz musician with a positive outlook on life, you should be good to go. Cool. ;-)

    Though... I do think that the accidental death figures for Metal are skewed upward a bit by Spinal Tap's drummer situation...
    renzokMichaelHorowitzkevingcoxLoritmo
    You get one chance to enjoy this day, but if you're doing it right, that's enough.
  • renzokrenzok Perú✭✭ Geronimo Mateos Audrey
    Posts: 26
    "you can't really dust for vomit" :))
    MichaelHorowitzBob Holo
  • What about a whiskey drinking carnivore.....
    The Magic really starts to happen when you can play it with your eyes closed
  • Posts: 4,997
    Jazzaferri wrote: »
    whiskey drinking carnivore

    great band name!

    Jazzaferri
    Every note wants to go somewhere-Kurt Rosenwinkel
  • Lango-DjangoLango-Django Niagara-On-The-Lake, ONModerator
    Posts: 1,875
    In 2004, I had the wonderful experience of spending an entire afternoon with singer/guitarist and jazz historian Marty Grosz.

    You young punks of today have probably never heard of Marty, who is probably the only living guitarist still playing in the Carl Kress tuning of Bb-F-C-G-B-D.

    Anyway, Marty told me some interesting stuff about Crosby and Lang, none of which I can actually verify... but once again, "If ain't true, it should be."

    A) both Crosby and Lang were devotees of "the weed".

    B) both were devout Catholics who would often go to early Mass together after all-night recording sessions.

    ********

    And from a 1995 visit to Philadelphia to visit Lang's living nephews, Tom and Ed Massaro, I also learned

    C) Bing and Eddie's wives, Dixie Crosby and Kitty Lang, were best friends... not to mention the fact that both of these ladies were total twenties- style cuties!

    D) Bing attended Eddie's 1933 funeral in Philadelphia and cried inconsolably. Meanwhile, the police had to shut down vehicular traffic on the street outside (I believe it was Tenth Street in south Philly) as thousands of mourners stood outside silently showing their respect.

    *******

    Anyway, the story is that Eddie got the fatal tonsillectomy because he had a raspy voice and Bing wanted him to get more speaking parts in their films.

    You can hear a recording of Eddie's voice as he chatted with Ruth Etting during the filming of a 1932 film...


    MichaelHorowitzBucoNone
    Paul Cezanne: "I could paint for a thousand years without stopping and I would still feel as though I knew nothing."

    Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."

    Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
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