Here's me, trying to play like Eddie Lang...

Lango-Django

A live recording made as my trio Dr. Jazz and the Jazzbugs played a recent gig at Nietzche's in Buffalo NY.

I am honored to be playing with the great guys you'll hear, reedman Dr. Jazz (aka Brian Bauer) and Ed Woods on bass.

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After a few years of playing without a rhythm guitar or piano behind me, I'm still getting accustomed to it.

There's that awful initial sinking feeling when you start to play a solo and suddenly there's no rhythm behind you!

But I've learned that the main thing is that you must keep going, just don't stop playing! and somehow it starts to feel better.

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Hope nobody is offended, but my rhythm guitar playing breaks most of the rules of pompe-ing.... I'm real happy with the sound of my Michael Dunn guitar using an Ischell pickup and Soundcraft PA system with parametric EQ. It's got traces of Lang and Django, but it just feels like 'me'.

Will

Bones

Nice job Will!

Check out some of Marty Grosz's stuff too for some inspiration.

spud

Yeah nice playing man!

Jazzaferri

good fun that

Nejc

Superb playing by everyone!

Lango-Django

Bones, in response to your posting a few days ago, which I've been too busy to respond to due to a family reunion...

I'm a big Marty Grosz fan and have been fortunate enough to be able to spend some time with the man himself a few times over the past ten or fifteen years, usually at the Canadian Collectors Congress, a Toronto jazz 78 collectors' group.

Attached is a picture of Marty from April playing my four-string Grimshaw plectrum guitar... it's like a tenor guitar except with a longer 27" scale and usually uses CGBD plectrum banjo tuning.

Marty's six-string tuning is similar: BbFCGBD and he also plays plectrum banjo and guitar.

While I love all the pretty chords used in this style, the downside is that it pretty much demands intensive memorization and constant practice, and in performance, once you fall off the merry-go-round, it's real hard to get back on again!

While with the single string style, what the hell, if you make a mistake, you just keep on playing something different!

So in my own playing I try to sort of combine those styles... I'll let you know when I've got it mastered!

Will

Bones

Hey Will, wow, that's a great story. Yeah I've been a fan of MG ever since I heard him on NPR Riverwalk decades ago. In fact, I wrote him a letter at one point asking him about his tuning. He actually wrote me back! I still have the letter. He said stick to standard tuning and didn't tell me what his tuning was so I'm stoked that I finally found out. Of course, I don't know what the chord shapes would look like. :-)

thanks