Youtube video of Grappelli, Grisman, and O'Connor on the Johnny Carson Show-1979

bohemewarbler

Just came across this video of Stephane Grappelli, David Grisman, and Mark O'Connor on the Johnny Carson Show, 1979 (and it didn't seem to have been linked previously on this forum). Although the fashions have changed, this music is still hot! David Grisman and Martin Taylor have recently come out with some very nice recordings with an unmistakeable GJ flavor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=113&v=pJ-JbVFk1GY

Svanis1337

Wow, that really swung!

Stringswinger

I love the interjection of Autumn Leaves changes into the a section of Swing 39! Thanks for sharing...

Charles Meadows

What's the second song they did?

bohemewarbler

The second tune is "Swing 39" a Django Reinhardt composition.

lostjohn

Wow! Thanks for posting this. This stuff (Grisman, Tony Rice, Mark O'Conner, etc) playing with Stephane Grapelli, was my introduction to acoustic jazz/swing. I am as in awe of it today as I was when I first heard it in the mid 70's. And, amazingly, guitar is a second instrument for Mark O'Conner. He is, as I'm sure a lot of you know, one of the best fiddlers on the planet.

Buco

Wow, that was so killer tight.

lostjohn wrote: »

And, amazingly, guitar is a second instrument for Mark O'Conner. He is, as I'm sure a lot of you know, one of the best fiddlers on the planet.

Yeah and yet he still managed to win, on his "side" instrument, a national title in bluegrass guitar. And mandolin too.
That's when you wanna yell "not fair!".
There's Grappelli's quote on Mark's site: "Mark O’Connor-he’s not what you would call ... human.”

Bones

I think that stuff may have had a big influence on what passed for the 'American' take on le pompe (as discussed in several other threads) in contrast to what was happening in Europe. In the US prior to mass communication on the net there just wasn't a whole lot of info on 'traditional' or Euro GJ techniques. At least from my personal experience of listening to this and Django LPs and trying to guess what they were doing. Hence sometimes there isn't really any damping on the 1 and 3 I think and upstrokes in various places. Not to take anything away from Dawg music but I just think it had an influence that crossed over into others trying to pick up on the GJ repertoire back in the day.

mandocat

No Buco, you wanna yell "not fair" when you take your hot girlfriend to a Grisman concert and she breaks up with you, dates O'Connor, and tells you about him playing mandolin for her on Mt. Tamalpais. Sad, but true.

lostjohn

Mandocat, I see that as incentive to practice more because, apparently, the best musician gets the girl (I'm just assuming that O'Conner is a better player than you, since he's better than about 99.999% of the world - no intended slight to you haha). However, I doubt that the amount of hours woodshedding applies in his case. I think he won his first fiddle competition at about 6 yrs. of age.

mandocat

After 36 or so years I think it's kind of funny now. Not so much at the time. And yes, he was a better musician at 6 than I'll ever be and certainly at 13 when he was national fiddle champion, national flat picking champion, etc., etc.