Guitar World Greatest Guitarist Poll (django is up today)

noodlenot

i also think (but who am i to dare?) that django would be riding a different caravan if he was with us now, or even if he had lived a few more years - he was an original.

as for the academics of bop, who am i to argue? i can hear bebop "wanting" to be there in Tatum´s chords, or in dodo marmarosa´s obliquities. For me it got its wings with parker, but i love Diz too -the whole lot, in fact.

cheers,
miguel.

anthon_74

See, this side discussion about who created bop illustrates my point about Django. You would never have to even discuss who created gypsy jazz. It's automatic. It would seem that every other modern musical style has several founders that people argue had the "most" influence. Not the case with Django, which makes him unique in my opinion.

noodlenot

for me it´s not that simple, anthon - i don´t know who or what created GJ. shure, django made it all possible, but GJ didn´t appear necessarily, it developed contingently. academic expert to the rescue?

Elliot

anthon_74 wrote:

See, this side discussion about who created bop illustrates my point about Django. You would never have to even discuss who created gypsy jazz. It's automatic. It would seem that every other modern musical style has several founders that people argue had the "most" influence. Not the case with Django, which makes him unique in my opinion.

Just for the sake of playing devil's advocate here, there must be those who would say that Django was 90% Eddie Lang, dyt?

I'm no musicologist, but there is an overall linear or automatic progression in the development of jazz independent of who played it, isn't there? From 7th to 9th, to 11th to 13th scales and beyond, as music lost its role as something to be sung or danced to, different forms gradually became as acceptable as they were mathematically inevitable ("it's better than it sounds..."). Here Hip-hop/Rap with a few exceptions is of course not music at all, but Poetry with background music as a form of public performance, strictly speaking.

scot

“It’s said that Django played gypsy style. He did not play gypsy style. He played a style that was uniquely his. The music of Django started with Django. He played the guitar, a traditional instrument, but his school was his own. He created a style.”

This quote is from Matelot Ferret, who was an expert on the subject. Django created his own inimitable style by uniquely synthesizing various other kinds of music and adding his own original ideas. He never played anything like "gypsy jazz" so he certainly couldn't have invented it. It's certainly true that when "gypsy jazz" was invented (not so long ago), it took roughly 100% of it's inspiration from Django's playing. It wasn't a synthesis of anything and didn't really involve original ideas. Still "mostly" the same today too - gypsy jazz as a style takes nearly all its influence from itself. It's very much like bluegrass that way, though there is more stretching out today than ever before - or at least since the '50s...

anthon_74

Okay, let me rephrase - I defy any of you to find me one single Gypsy Jazz guitarist who DOESN'T cite Django as their number one influence in terms of their development playing the gypsy Jazz style. Every gypsy Jazz group I've ever seen plays mostly Django repertoire tunes with a few originals in there, and talks about Django at least once or twice in a performance.

Not to belabor a point, but to the best of my knowledge, there are no other people of that sort, who are so closely connected to the style they "pioneered", except maybe Bach and the pioneering of the "chord progression".

Maybe it's partly perception, but perception becomes reality. Who knows maybe there was a shadow character who all along did all this before Django, like a Christopher Marlowe to Shakespeare, or Einstein's wife...

Teddy Dupont

There is no doubt whatsoever that Django Reinhardt created the music that is now called Gypsy Jazz. That's what Matelo Ferret is saying although it was not called Gyspy Jazz then.

Stringswinger

Django and Wes are two of the greatest guitar players of all time. Both were jazz guitarists. IMO, this obsession with pre WWII Django and Selmer guitars is silly. If Django lived longer, he would have played a Gibson Es-175 like his brother, his sons and his grandson. Or he would have played an L-5 like Wes did.

I think Wes was the better player overall as his solos are more thematic and display more melodic qualities. Django, on the other hand, played with more abandon. I totally understand where one could prefer Django over Wes.

In 200 years both guitarists will still be remembered while pop stars like Lady Gaga and Michael Jackson will have been relegated to the dustbin of musical history.

I think each genre of music has it's great guitar players. In jazz, I think the three greatest are Django, Wes and Joe Pass. Jimi Hendrix and Andre Segovia are just as valid a choice when choosing the "greatest ever guitarist".

At the end of the day, there is no clear answer.

My two cents...

Cheers,

Marc
http://www.hotclubpacific.com

anthon_74

Stringswinger wrote:

IMO, this obsession with pre WWII Django and Selmer guitars is silly.
http://www.hotclubpacific.com

hmmm.... One of my favorite things about Gypsy Jazz is the sound, look, and feel of the selmer style guitars.

mikegnik

anthon_74 wrote:

Stringswinger wrote:

IMO, this obsession with pre WWII Django and Selmer guitars is silly.
http://www.hotclubpacific.com

hmmm.... One of my favorite things about Gypsy Jazz is the sound, look, and feel of the selmer style guitars.

I second that- I attribute my connection with Django's jazz largely in part to my connection with acoustic instruments. From a guitarist's perspective, playing an acoustic has always been more fulfilling, somehow more "real."

I love these Selmer type guitars too, and appreciate their ability to have a quality tone at a loud volume, not unlike a good violin or an opera singer.