Classic Jazz Guitar

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Title	Eddie Lang Miscellany by Classic Jazz Guitar
Date	*3- , 2009*
by	*CJG*

Eddie Lang was the leading guitarist of his day and in a short 10 years, roughly 1923 – 1933, he established the guitar and the guitarist as legitimate components of jazz.

Lang started his musical career on the violin and later took up the banjo and the guitar. In the early 1920’s he played professionally with his friend Joe Venuti and he is best remembered today for some of the guitar/violin duos he made with Venuti. The Lang/Venuti relationship continued throughout Lang’s career culminating in the early 1930’s with their co-led orchestra.

Eddie Lang’s first recorded appearance was probably around 1923 with the Charlie Kerr Orchestra. In this orchestra Lang played both banjo and guitar. In 1924 he recorded on the guitar with Red McKenzie’s Candy Kids, a group with the strange instrumentation of comb, kazoo, banjo (Jack Bland) and guitar. Later in 1924 Lang made some of his first recordings with the Mound City Blue Blowers. Many of these early recorded sessions included both banjo and guitar with Lang’s guitar paired with notable banjo players like John Cali (Irving Kaufman) and Jack Bland (McKenzie’s Candy Kids and The Mound City Blue Blowers).

Lang moved to New York around 1924 and during the next 10 years played and recorded with just about every leading orchestra and performer. He recorded with Jean Goldkette, Red Nichols, Frankie Trambauer, Bix Beiderbecke, The Dorsey Brothers, Paul Whiteman, Jack Pettis and Joe Venuti. He backed numerous singers among them, The Boswell Sisters, Bing Crosby, Francis Langford, Peggy English, Irving Kaufman and Bessie Smith to name just a few.

Eddie Lang was one of the first complete guitarists/musicians. He was as capable in live performance as he was in the studio. He played in all of the popular idioms of his day from blues to jazz and the novelty groups to the large orchestras. As a testament to his talent and influence he was often a featured soloist in all of these venues.

Eddie Lang died in 1933 after a very short but enormously productive jazz guitar career.

Below are a few representative samples of Lang’s guitar, from McKenzie's Candy Kids When My Sugar Walks Down The Street to Feeling My Way with Carl Kress. These were selected from the hundreds of examples in the Lang discography.