Bireli and Eddie

Lango-Django

Last night's Toronto Bireli Lagrene concert was a wonderful event. His amazing mastery of the guitar will live in the memory of everyone present.

(BTW, kudos to Djangobooks.com very own Dennis Chang for his solid contribution on rhythm guitar. IMO, the sound man could've cranked up Dennis' mike a few more notches, but maybe it was just where I was sitting...?)

Anyway, one of the evening's many, many highlights was an unaccompanied duet between Bireli and sax man Franck Wolf on the lovely "Mouvements"



This piece brought to mind a similar unaccompanied duet between Eddie Lang and clarinet genius Jimmy Dorsey way back in 1930. Both compositions feature a sort of light classical feel and feature the guitar and woodwind playing in unison.

After a bit of googling, I'm still unsure as to whether "Mouvements" is a Bireli composition or was written by Philip Glass, as one YouTube commenter indicated?

Similarly, authorship of the lovely Lang-Dorsey eight bar intro to "Promises" is unclear: was it written by Lang? And/or Dorsey?

Anyway, have a quick listen to the intro to this 1930 pop tune and tell me if you agree that Lang was WAY ahead of his time!



Will

Lango-Django

PS Transcribing "Mouvements" is way above my pay grade, but Eddie's little intro is real easy to play along with... try these chords:

A7 005655

Bb7 x06766

A7 005655

Dm X532XX sweep twice

D XX423X sweep twice

Ab X665XX (sweep followed by upstroke open D string ghost note)

Ebdim X657XX (sweep followed by upstroke open D string ghost note)

Eb7 6X564X

Pretty cool to use these chords to introduce a tune in the key of Ab, nest-ce pas?

Will

Jazzaferri

Bireli shredding.....sounds like it could be Bireli's take on the Glass Movement No 1. Nice intro to Promises. Did Lang do the arrangement?

Lango-Django

Nice intro to Promises. Did Lang do the arrangement?

I suppose that's pretty much unknowable at this point, Jay.

Here's what is known from the historical record:

1) Lang and Venuti wrote songs together ("Apple Blossoms", "Doin Things" and "Wild Cat" being my personal favourites)

2) Lang and Venuti also wrote songs individually (Venuti's "Mystery" and Lang's "Rainbow Dreams" being my personal favourites)

3) Jimmy Dorsey wrote many tunes, both individually and in partnership with others (his virtuoso sax piece "Beebe" being the only one I actually know...)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Dorsey#Compositions

*******

So my own personal hypothesis, though I would welcome arguments on this point, is that the intro in question may have started life as a Venuti-Lang intro for some composition that was probably in Dm or F, but somewhere along the way, it got adapted into a Dorsey-Lang composition for a song that was in Ab.

I'm just guessing this because of the unusual chord sequence...

Will

Jazzaferri

Will, as you are far more up to speed on Lang's work...have you heard him do something similar elsewhere?

Lango-Django

No, I've never really heard Lang do anything like that D minor-to-major change, which sounds like it could've possibly been lifted from a Bach invention. Or perhaps it was Jimmy Dorsey's idea.

Venuti and Lang were both classical music lovers, with Lang having a particular fondness for Debussy and Ravel.

One of their most frequent riffs (used on "Doin' Things", "A Peach of a Pair" and many others) was lifted from Debussy's "Maiden With the Flaxen Hair"... check it out: