Footage of Django with archtop.

Lango-Django

The Les Paul I saw in the TV documentary was quite sincere in his reverence for Django’s playing... has anyone seen it?

And lets not forget, Les Paul had a lot to be proud of with his achievements in recording and guitar technology...

So can’t we be positive about both men, instead of creating some kind of bizarro competition between the two?

NylonDave

Lango-Django wrote: »

The Les Paul I saw in the TV documentary was quite sincere in his reverence for Django’s playing... has anyone seen it?

And lets not forget, Les Paul had a lot to be proud of with his achievements in recording and guitar technology...

So can’t we be positive about both men, instead of creating some kind of bizarro competition between the two?

I agree wholeheartedly with all of that Lango.

When I grew up we had a cheap serialised encyclopedia at home. It told the history of the world from the perspective of unquestioned and unerring British moral and intellectual superiority.

I remember having a, fortunately gentle, argument with my dad when I aired my concerns about the obvious bias and dishonesty of these beloved childhood heirlooms. Luckily he was not so invested in the publication or the policies of the British Empire that he felt the need to make an enemy of a seven year old for considering contradictory information and finding it more convincing.

He wasn't on facebook you see, people were more free then.

D.

Lango-Django

Thanks, Dave.

Hey, speaking of documentaries about guitarists... there was a real good one a couple of years ago about fingerstyle electric guitarist Lenny Breau which I highly recommend, too.

I dont know how big Lenny’s shadow is outside of Canada, but to us Canadians he is a national treasure

...up there with Amos Garrett.... Ed Bickert... Bruce Coburn...

Will

NylonDave

Lango-Django wrote: »

Thanks, Dave.



I dont know how big Lenny’s shadow is outside of Canada, but to us Canadians he is a national treasure



Will

He is certainly well remembered. He impressed me playing flamenco the same way that Sammy Davis junior did when he danced flamenco. It's not that anyone would ever confuse him for the real thing it's just that it was more accomplished and respectful than mere clap trap, which a lazy performer can rely upon when he has no respect for his audience.

There is somewhere an audio/book combo of Lenny breaking down his approach to playing unaccompanied blues with shell voicings on the innerstrings moving chromatically and blues scale lines on top. Ted gets to most of it by the end of this series.

I'll try and check out Amos Garrett and Bruce Coburn Lango, I am not familiar with them.



D.

Buco

Lenny was one of the extremely rarified few.
You could say he was obsessed with the music and his instrument. I heard a story, forgot who told it, about two of them jamming and playing late into the night. This person went to sleep at some point and the next morning woke up to see Lenny practicing playing harmonics, Lenny never went to bed.

NylonDave

I think Ted gets to that story in the series above, although he describes it as Lenny listening to an album for days on end and working out fingerings for chords that would result in the extended harmony he wanted to hear without once touching the instrument.

Here's Lenny with Tal Farlowe looking very well and clearly delighted to be hanging out with one of his heroes. At this point Tal was mostly sign painting and Lenny's absences from the scene were fuelling cliched rumours of a dysfunctional lifestyle.

Buco

Dave, none of the YouTube links work, it gives "an error occurred..." message.

NylonDave

Buco wrote: »

Dave, none of the YouTube links work, it gives "an error occurred..." message.

I just selected edit on my posts copied the links into my browser and found that they work perfectly well.

Maybe there is a bug or maybe I've been found guilty of contradicting trolls again and my right to posting links has been withdrawn.

I'll PM you the links.

I see evidence of one moderator's attention on this page you might want to ask him what's went wrong. I shan't as, previously, I spent a week trying to get a straight answer about silent partisan moderation here, was given false assurances that no moderation had occurred, was accused of having alternate active usernames and finally I was insulted publicly based on the opinion of an unnamed third party.

D.

MichaelHorowitz

@NylonDave The youtube links you posted have the letter "D" added to the end. Remove that and they will work.

Lango-Django

Ooh, then lucky you, you have Amos Garrett’s amazing solo on “Midnight at the Oasis” to hear for the first time.. oh, to be able to play like that!



Amos is a fierce Django partisan, too, even though he can only play fingerstyle due to some kind of weird problem with his hand.

I heard a live CBC radio concert Amos did in the early 80’s playing all Django’s best compositions in his own elegant way... breathtaking!

I only wish I had taped it with my cassette deck- remember those?