Massaro's shuffle

Charlie Castelluzzo

I love Django's shuffle rhythm and have never stopped practicing it. I was surprised to hear what sounds like some shuffling coming from Eddie Lang in this recording? Looks like Lang may have shuffled first !

PapsPier

I am pretty sure DJango didnt invent the shuffle technique. It is something that comes from the banjo players on the early recordings of jazz, if I am not mistaken

Lango-Django

Other than the occasional big band gig, Eddie's rhythm guitar technique tended to be a lot 'busier' than the later 'smoother' 30's style.

2017 is the hundredth anniversary of recorded jazz. The recordings of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band were first released in 1917.

It is an interesting thought exercise to imagine the effect these recordings must have had on a couple of teenage Philadelphia musicians named Joe Venuti and Salvatore Massaro.

I can imagine Venuti being intensely interested in learning the hot licks of the ODJB's ace clarinet player, Larry Shields... meanwhile, Lang would have been trying to assimilate and imitate the chords and accompaniment figures provided by the piano and/or trombone... since the ODJB didn't have a bass instrument.

But above all, this was a contrapuntal style of music with several voices improvising simultaneously... something folks up north had never heard before! And THAT would have been exciting!

So I think when you listen to Lang's accompaniment style, you have to remember that: it's usually pretty 'busy', because that 'busy' kind of simultaneous improvisation behind the lead instrument (or the lead voice in the case of Bing Crosby) would have been a very important element in the jazz style he would have learned from recordings like the ODJB's.

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As a longtime plectrum banjo player, I honestly can't really think of any classic jazz recordings that featured this kind of shuffle rhythm on the banjo.

I think it's more likely that Lang made this up all by himself.

But there are a lot of knowledgable folks around here, so if I've got that wrong, I'm sure somebody will set me straight!

Will

Ampsmasher

I thought you invented the shuffle Charlie?

Lango-Django

...Hey, today I started to wonder if you former bluesmen know of any old 78's that featured this type of guitar shuffle rhythm--- Scrapper Blackwell, guys like that? Perhaps it was already a "thing" when Eddie starts doing it?