1927, February 4: Eddie Lang-guitar, RECORDING SESSION, NYC

Frankie Trumbauer and His Orchestra with Bix and Lang

Bix Beiderbecke-cornet, Bill Rank-trombone, Frank Trumbauer-c-melody sax, Jimmy Dorsey-clarinet, alto sax, Paul Mertz-piano, arranger, Eddie Lang-guitar, Chauncey Morehouse-drums.

80393-B SINGIN’ THE BLUES-OKeh 40772-B

This band is made up of the best hot players from the Jean Goldkette Orchestra, with the fortuitous addition of Eddie Lang. SINGIN’ THE BLUES was to become one of Bix Beiderbecke’s masterpieces, his solo much admired and imitated. It is, arguably, the first “definitive “ballad” statement in recorded jazz. Slow-drag blues numbers existed but they projected a vastly different mood and were less interesting harmonically than ballads.

Since the ‘30’s, ballads have been slowed to a glacial ooze. SINGIN’ THE BLUES was a pop tune and is performed at a moderate dance tempo. It’s amazing that it doesn’t come apart halfway through, since there’s no bass (or tuba, or bass sax), no drum set, only cymbals (engineers were afraid that drums would be too noisy), and the piano is barely audible.

Lang furnishes a running commentary that’s letter perfect, alternating between rhythm chording, oompah bass, arpeggios, and barbershop-style tenor lines (so-called after the “tenor” voice in male singing groups). But it cannot be said that he pushes the band by vigorously marking the time. That function is assumed by the horn players who articulate time through their melodic phrasing, a trait that many early jazzmen shared. They had grown up playing for dancers who wanted to hear the beat, not just from the rhythm instruments, but from the melody instruments as well. (MOG)

Lang’s powers as an accompanist also help shape the great Trumbauer-Beiderbecke OKeh record of “SINGIN’ THE BLUES,” made February 4, 1927. It’s all the more remarkable for the fact that, apart from the guitar, there is effectively no rhythm section: no bass instrument is present, and the early electric recording (or, more accurately, conservative recording engineers-the equipment, it turned out, could handle more) limits drummer Chauncey Morehouse to little more than a woodblock and a couple of cymbals; Paul Mertz’s piano, never rhythmically incisive, is little more than a distant, ghostly presence. Lang carries it with charm and winning intelligence: his ascending arpeggios in bar 26 of Bix’s chorus meeting a descending one played by the cornet, is stunning, topped only by a second, in triplets this time, at a similar place in the closing ensemble. (RMS)

Lang’s accompaniment, though secondary to the lead horns, is scarcely less important. In this kind of linear embellishment, Lang is second to none; he seems to have an uncanny feeling for the musical mot juste, doing not too much and not too little. (MOG)

SOURCES

The Classic Columbia and OKeh Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang Sessions, Mosaic Records MD8-213, 2002. (MOG)

Lost Chords-White Musicians and Their Contribution to Jazz, 1915-1945, Richard M. Sudhalter, Oxford University Press, 1999. (RMS)