Diamondback1
New in Town
- Messages
- 34
- Location
- Western WA
...how true....and then Wes Montgomery.That might be true if Charlie Christian or Django Reinhardt hadn't come along.
...how true....and then Wes Montgomery.That might be true if Charlie Christian or Django Reinhardt hadn't come along.
...how true....and then Wes Montgomery.
Thank you.Yes, I know. It's like saying the tenor saxophone stops with Isham Jones.
That might be true if Charlie Christian or Django Reinhardt hadn't come along.
They *wouldn't* have come along if it hadn't been for Eddie Lang, though.
I like Christian, but despite that I dearly wish the electric guitar had never been invented.
Some of us still think everything that needed to be said on the guitar was said by Eddie Lang.
See, that's the thing -- I can usually understand why people see something in any kind of music, even if it isn't my own personal taste. But loud guitar rock of any style I literally can't abide -- it gives me migraines, like the sound of pushing a row of garbage cans down a concrete stairwell. A violent cacaphonous din, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Bah.
See, that's the thing -- I can usually understand why people see something in any kind of music, even if it isn't my own personal taste. But loud guitar rock of any style I literally can't abide -- it gives me migraines, like the sound of pushing a row of garbage cans down a concrete stairwell. A violent cacaphonous din, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Bah.
I've just been subjected to a day of Ornette Coleman, including the score from "Naked Lunch", "the Shape of Jazz to Come", "Tomorrow is the Question!" and other such rot.
Sounds to me like a Complicated Cat-Fight in a Mustard Mill!
After listening to these discs one may easily understand why jazz became a cultural irrelevancy around the time of their production.
Rather like the modern "serious" music of the "Ode to a Dead Mock Turtle" school. I won't even deign to address "4'33" or "Landscapes".
Music is merely a pattern of sounds, arranged in a pleasing manner. It has no cosmic/spiritual/mystical/higher-level-of-existance significance whatever beyond the fact that we find it appealing. We create all these explanations and rationalizations as a way of trying to figure out why it appeals to us, because we've been inculcated into thinking that simply saying "hey, that sounds nice. I like it," would be hopelessly petit-bourgeois of us.
They *wouldn't* have come along if it hadn't been for Eddie Lang, though.
I like Christian, but despite that I dearly wish the electric guitar had never been invented.
Here's the ultimate musical heresy to chew on:
Music is merely a pattern of sounds, arranged in a pleasing manner. It has no cosmic/spiritual/mystical/higher-level-of-existance significance whatever beyond the fact that we find it appealing. We create all these explanations and rationalizations as a way of trying to figure out why it appeals to us, because we've been inculcated into thinking that simply saying "hey, that sounds nice. I like it," would be hopelessly petit-bourgeois of us.
Here's the ultimate musical heresy to chew on:
Music is merely a pattern of sounds, arranged in a pleasing manner. It has no cosmic/spiritual/mystical/higher-level-of-existance significance whatever beyond the fact that we find it appealing. We create all these explanations and rationalizations as a way of trying to figure out why it appeals to us, because we've been inculcated into thinking that simply saying "hey, that sounds nice. I like it," would be hopelessly petit-bourgeois of us.
Exactly! Musical taste is very individual and not easily explainable. How else could I come to like both Harry Partch and Isham Jones? Which is why it's kind of pointless to win others over to your point of view. We like what we like even though we often cannot explain why. If music is meant to give us pleasure we should just give in to what we like and enjoy it without trying to make it right for everybody else.
That's a "what if" question. Lang isn't necessarily on the same level of influence as, say, Louis Armstrong. If not Lang, then someone else would have come along eventually. It's not like he was the only guitarist of the era.