How musically educated was Django?

Lango-Django

the accordionists were all readers. You would thus expect that their guitarists would at least be capable of playing chords on demand. I am certain that they were able to do this - I have a recording of a rehearsal at La Lanterne from the mid-60s, you can clearly hear Baro calling out the chords.

I agree, and I think it was quite likely that Django was much like Wes Montgomery and Bix and countless other jazz greats: although they couldn't read formal music off the treble clef, they knew the chord names for at least the major, minor and dominant chords... probably not elaborate modern voicings like you see today on lead sheets, like Db7b5#9b13... I don't know what the hell to make of chords like that, and I seriously doubt that Django or Wes or Bix did either.

But if the bandleader told any of those guys, "Look, at the end of the first chorus, I want you to play a four bar break over a Bb7 chord, to lead us into the next chorus in Eb." I think all three of them would have understood perfectly.

The question I ask myself is what Django would do if he were to come back today and you were to hand him a "grille" type chord chart for some sixties tune... just for the hell of it, let's say it were "The Shadow of Your Smile", a tune with a fair number of chord changes...

Based upon my experience over the years with some guitar players I've met who are great players but semi-literate at any kind of reading, I think he would've had a LOT of trouble following the chart by sight... but after he'd heard the tune a time or two, he'd play it totally great!

klaatu

Michael Bauer wrote:

Does it seem to anyone else that many of the most original and inventive players were unburdened by the paper side of music and relied solely on their ears and imaginations? Not that there haven't been great players who had a formal education, but so many of the most original players have played by ear.

By the same token, Michael, so many of us have met people who are highly proficient at playing from sheet music but totally at sea if asked to play by ear. I've known countless people with formal musical education who were trained to play what's on the printed page and can do so flawlessly but are helpless without the sheet music, as well as many fine jazz players who are lost without their fake sheets. In our band, I really try to encourage the other players to ditch the charts, because when the charts are there, they tend to stare at them and lose contact with the audience, plus I have to wonder how much of their creativity is being stifled as they focus on the charts.

Lango-Django

Yeah, the ideal is definitely to be able to read and fake perfectly... and there were a lot of jazz greats who could do just that: Ellington, Armstrong, Waller, Goodman, Teagarden, etc etc

I agree with Klaatu that the chart shouldn't become a crutch, but it is a necessary evil... trying to jam with players who can't read charts limits you to only playing the tunes which they already know!

Which is okay if they know a lot of tunes, but I find that often the non-chart readers don't know a lot of tunes.

jmcgann

John LaPorta (one of the original Berklee professors and Charlie Parker/Mingus alum) said that a well rounded musician "should see what music sounds like and hear what music looks like". Back in the day, an improvising musician who could read well could access any kind of work, and many of them supported themselves in NY and LA reading stuff down in the studios...some of that really swinging cartoon music from the golden era was some hard shit to read, and they played it like it was another chorus on Minor Swing.

Old world craftsmanship is a beautiful thing.

ts

Lango-Django wrote:

... I think he would've had a LOT of trouble following the chart by sight... but after he'd heard the tune a time or two, he'd play it totally great!

The same would most probably be true for Bireli. To me that's what music is about: hearing, second to reading.
ts

Jeff Moore

Langodjango wrote: "... I think he would've had a LOT of trouble following the chart by sight... but after he'd heard the tune a time or two, he'd play it totally great!"

I think you would soon throw the chart away willingly if Django were playing with you, because his knowledge of music would, within minutes or seconds, provide you with innovations that are there in the arrangement but undiscovered, unless your crazy for pedagogy.
The problem wouldn't be "how fast can he learn this?" but "how much embarrassment can I tolerate and how fast can I adapt?" Within a month, you'd be wondering: "What does musical education in popular genres really consist of?"

Teddy Dupont

Jeff Moore wrote:

"..... but after he'd heard the tune a time or two, he'd play it totally great!"

Charles Delaunay said Django could play the chords to any tune after hearing it just once.

Django did not read music. He was music!

Jeff Moore

Teddy, I was trying to quote lango django. I'm a bit of a technophobe.

stubla

It really is 'cart before horse' time here....To quote(no less) than Igor Stravinsky-
"There is no such thing as musical theory--theory is just 'words' we use to describe the musical 'sounds' we hear"
Django 'heard' everything he wanted to hear--we are are talking about 'sound' here---why do we feel the need to attach verbal vocabulary to such things?
i'm absolutely sure he didn't think ....urghh.... "what tritone arpeggio do i play on the middle eight of Anniversary Song".You may as well subject birdsong to the same absurd anaysis!
In the most wonderful way-- Django was one of the most 'educated' musicians there has ever been.That should be enough.

Stu

jmcgann

stubla wrote:

It really is 'cart before horse' time here....To quote(no less) than Igor Stravinsky-
"There is no such thing as musical theory--theory is just 'words' we use to describe the musical 'sounds' we hear"
Django 'heard' everything he wanted to hear--we are are talking about 'sound' here---why do we feel the need to attach verbal vocabulary to such things?
i'm absolutely sure he didn't think ....urghh.... "what tritone arpeggio do i play on the middle eight of Anniversary Song".You may as well subject birdsong to the same absurd anaysis!
In the most wonderful way-- Django was one of the most 'educated' musicians there has ever been.That should be enough.

Stu

well, some of us teach, so "just listen" sometimes needs a little reinforcement 8)