This was one of the jazzier pop tunes recorded by bandleader Fred Rich, whose Columbia studio orchestra included Venuti, Lang, and the Dorsey Brothers. I'm not sure who is the vocalist on this recording, perhaps Smith Ballew?
Anyway, this cut is rather typical of Lang's rhythm style when playing with a bigger band.
Trademarks of his band style include:
- a sort of relaxed "horse trot" 4/4 style with fairly equal emphasis on each beat
- often the chords are played just on the top four strings, high on the fingerboard almost like a tenor banjo
- so it makes an interesting contrast when he switches to shapes that include bass strings
- he will occasionally use a little banjo-like "four-and-a-one" triplet strum (e.g. 0:38)
- he often moves the same chord shape up and down a fret or two
- he uses his pinky to add extensions to the chords (e.g. behind the trombone solo you can hear
X-X-9-10-10-10 to X-X-9-10-10-12
X-X-5-5-5-5 to X-X-5-5-5-7
or perhaps this alternate fingering of the same phrase
X-10-10-9-10-X to X-10-10-9-12-X
-and of course the ubiquitous Venuti-Lang "Maiden With the Flaxen Hair" violin-guitar phrase that is used for an intro on this recording, and many others...
Enjoy!
Will
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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