Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it

Subject: Folklore: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: BluesmanJames
Date: 29 Apr 11 - 12:39 PM

Greetings everyone. I kind of stumbled on this accidentally: I am guitar player steeped in blues buts that not all I do. I recently discovered this musician Elmer Snowden He recorded two albums with Lonnie Johnson around 1960 Snowden was a guitar player but he is known primarily as a banjo player. He was a member of a group The Harlem Banjo Quintet
http://www.redhotjazz.com/elmer.html He has one record with Cliff Jackson http://www.amazon.com/gp/recsradio/radio/B000000Z6T/ref=pd_krex_listen_dp_img?ie=UTF8&refTagSuffix=dp_img

What I am trying to say, there is(was) a school of banjo in which a 4 string Tenor Banjo was used in Jazz. Unlike Blue Grass or Old Time Music, it was played with a plectrum and it was featured a lot in early New Orleans music where a an um amplified guitar could not be heard over a brass band.
Often times the banjo would solo on tunes like "Laura" and "Sweet Georgia Brown" I am told that this style of banjo playing is all but dead and there are no current performers Is that true?
I found this man on Youtube Eddy Davis doing Laura

I found this unknown duo doing "Sweet Georgia Brown"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SPaA206_Ng&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Gh4pyecsBE

Subject: RE: Folklore: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 29 Apr 11 - 01:12 PM

I too, am in love with this style of banjo playing. I love the early work of Eddie condon and Eddie laing. I am hoping to take up the jazz plectrum banjo soon. There are some great players in the revival bands. top of the tree might be a guy called John Culshaw.

Check him out.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: Will Fly
Date: 29 Apr 11 - 04:27 PM

Hi BluesmanJames - I used to play tenor banjo in a jazz band and have switched to tenor guitar over the last two years. Your post mentions both "plectrum banjo" and "tenor banjo" but - which one do you actually mean? There is actually a difference, in that the plectrum banjo is normally tuned CGBD and the tenor banjo is tuned CGDA - which maked for different chordings and sounds.

Eddie Laing, in my humble view, was one of the most wonderful guitar players. I have a book written in the late 1920s which details his harmonic methods - wasn't written by him but by someone who used Laing's playing as a methodology - and it's seriously intricate stuff.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 29 Apr 11 - 05:26 PM

Do you have a favourite Eddie laing period, Will?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: pdq
Date: 29 Apr 11 - 06:18 PM

GUEST,Alan Whittle started a thread on this suject last month...

                                                                                                 ...here tis

Subject: RE: Folklore: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: Leadfingers
Date: 29 Apr 11 - 06:50 PM

I cant nsme names , but there are still a lot of bands working in UK
using Plectrum Banjo

Subject: RE: Folklore: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: Sugwash
Date: 29 Apr 11 - 07:03 PM

The principle difference between the plectrum banjo and tenor banjo is the scale length. A plectrum banjo has a scale length roughly the same as a guitar, the tenor is a couple of inches shorter. I play a plectrum guitar, but I tend to tune it like a bouzouki, ie. ADAD or GDAE.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: Wesley S
Date: 29 Apr 11 - 08:11 PM

I've seen Eddie Davis before. He plays with Woody Allen in his Dixieland band - I'me not sure of their name but they play Monday nights in NYC. Watch for a movie called "Wildman Blues" it's about their tour of Europe a few years back.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: BluesmanJames
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 08:55 AM

Thank you all one and all for your comments I learned something about banjos
Please check out Elmer Snowden and his Harlem Banjo Cd (out of print but you can listen to snips on amazon)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 09:14 AM

Where do you live BJ? theres loads of jazz banjo player going to be at swannage Jazz festival - many of the events are free - you could talk to half a dozen really good banjo players there - July 8-10th.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: pdq
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 10:01 AM

The Harlem Banjo CD did not sell well (not really a surprise) and is not easy to find at a resonable price.

Anyone who wants to listen to Snowden can get a CD of the guitar duets with Lonnie Johnson. The sessions were indeed in 1960, as mentioned in the initial post. In the 1990s, another record was issued of "outakes" from the session called "Blues, Ballads, and Jumpin' Jazz, Vol. 2" and is looser and more fun than the original. That CD runs about $7 and is on eBay any day you want (at least for now). Snowden: acoustic (lead) guitar and Lonnie Johnson: vocals and electric guitar.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: BluesmanJames
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 10:01 AM

I live in Ulster County NY (New Paltz) we have lots of banjo players but the majority play Blue Grass and frail- old time music I have nothing against this music
I was told, that "Jazz Banjo is dead" like stride piano its from another time. What is interesting is Bela Fleck seems to be developing a new or revised form of jazz using a 5 string and applying Earl Scruggs technique to jazz standards. I am not a banjo player and I may have used some incorrect terminology hope I did not offend anyone and if my comments need corrections please make them. Thank you all!

Subject: RE: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: Will Fly
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 10:33 AM

Al - I love all Eddie Laing's work! The "Blind Willie Dunn" duets that he did with Lonnie Johnson are stunning - and LJ displays an incredible technique in them. I suppose - if I was pushed - that I'd go for the Adrian Rollini/Joe Venuti/Eddie Laing/Arthur Schutt period - "Ragging The Scale" and all that.

He was also superb in the Whiteman Orchestra. A lot of people today look down their noses at Whiteman, but even Ellington and his ilk had huge respect for him. He looked after his musicians, even when they were off on benders like Bix - paid for treatment, kept their band seats ready for them when they returned.

So - all of Laing for me - and what a shame that he died so young from a botched tonsilectomy, eh?

I also love the guitar duets from Carl Kress and Dick McDonough - "Heatwave" is an excellent example.

Subject: RE: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: pdq
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 11:34 AM

From the 1920s through the 1960s, the most popular banjo strummers were Eddie Peabody, Harry Reser and Roy Smeck. All may be considered a bit "corny" by modern tastes, but all were fine musicians and great showmen.

Subject: RE: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 12:07 PM

I have read that in the 1920's, jazz bands used the banjo as their rhythm instrument, and the bands also included violins (gasp!)

Subject: RE: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: GUEST,Thimbles O'Hooligan
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 12:11 PM

Quite a few revivalist band still playing in Uk with escellent banjo players (usually the 4 string long necked G banjo I understand). Paul Sealey ex-Chris Barber etc is a prime example capable of great single string solos as well as rhythm strumming.

RtS

Subject: RE: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 03:38 PM

Django played banjo on a few early Hot Club recordings if I recall correctly.
And check out Eddie Peabody if you can.

Subject: RE: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 01 May 11 - 01:04 AM

I think the animosity to Whiteman derives from two things - the King of Jazz sobriquet, which in these racially sensitive times is a bit thick - and of course the business with Bix.

Bix had made a lot of money working for Whiteman - he'd amassed savings of twenty five thousand dollars. The whole sum was lost in the collapse of the banks in 1929 - and Bix was forced back to work when he needed rest and isolation.
That plus the fact that his work had been so brilliant in the small ensembles it gave rise to the idea that Bix was somehow prostituting his talent - with chubby PW as the pantomime bad pimp. A long way from the truth of course. Anyway I'm sure I'm telling you nowt new. I suppose that's how I stumbled onto Eddie Laing - his work on Singing the Blues with Bix. I got a double cd off bridport market for a quid, the jazzin bing crosby and theres some stuff with Laing on. And I've got one of his greatest hits sort of albums.

He's pretty damn good - not really my sort of guitarist. I like something more folky. More big open strings like Broonzy, Hopkins, Jansch and (gawd help me) Martin Carthy - the late eric Roche and Gerry Lockran and paul Downes.

not crazy about everything they do - but that's the sort of player I've tried to be.

Subject: RE: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: Will Fly
Date: 01 May 11 - 04:21 AM

"Singing The Blues" is to die for - and due in no small way also to Frankie Trumbauer's amazing tone on that C melody sax. I never tire of playing it. I've been contemplating a little multi-tracked video with tenor guitar and guitar, but haven't worked out anything yet that can give me the sweetness of sound I want. Oh well, we try...

I used to like Martin C's early guitar work - not so keen on his current open C tuning, I have to say. It makes everything sound a bit lumpy to me and, in spite of what he claims, I don't think it's as versatile as good old standard tuning, to be honest. I went to a whole day workshop of his a few weeks ago. It was a great day - make no mistake - and he's a lovely feller with a huge amount of commitment and passion for the music, but I'll be sticking to the ordinary tuning!

Broonzy is tops for me - and Brownie McGhee as well. I saw Paul in Brighton last year and he was as good as ever. I remember him from the old Brighton folk scene of the 1970s/80s, when his brother Warwick had a very good music shop in Upper North Street. There was a plastic Selemer Macaferri for sale and I nearly bought it...

Subject: RE: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 01 May 11 - 05:49 AM

We can't go on meeting like this - have you a website Will -or an e-mail. my contact details are on the website.

Open tunings are great, and C tuning is good also. You don't have to play it like MC. hers something i did with it:-
http://www.bigalwhittle.co.uk/id38.html


Carthy is a genius - but i couldn't disagree with him more about the nature of folk music. That view that comes from C. Sharp, Broadwood et al. it was visionary and very productive -it gave us not only Nic Jones, Tony Rose, MacColl - but also Holst, Delius, grainger all that sort of thing.

But its anathema to modern ears. I remember telling a a very nice lady who had never been to a folk club, about a paul downes gig She was coming to me for guitar lessons. She brought all her friends from work, and you can guess the rest. paul was giving it all this heavy trad stuff Sheath and knife, etc. Absolute bloody disaster - she was so nice , she nevr told me - she told my wife!

Similarly I was surrounded by a load of checkout ladies from the local asda, at fylde festival - why had I been onstage less time that all these traddies. the truth is that I'd done my 40 minutes, but time hangs heavy when the traddies are having fun.

I think people like Dylan and donovan changed everything. It wasn't an intellectual thing - just the passage of time somehow - and public sensibilities in folk music means that the music moves on and evolves.

Subject: RE: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: Will Fly
Date: 01 May 11 - 04:02 PM

Al - emailed the address on your website but the email got sent back. You'll find my email address at:

http://www.mjra.net/WillFly/email.shtml

Subject: RE: Jazz Plectrum Banjo Anyone still play it
From: GUEST,Steve
Date: 11 May 11 - 06:31 AM

Think of it like a loud mandolin. It's made to cut through a big band. Tune it like you like. It's real slidey, and your left hand is important. Not much sustain, so that's why I say it's like a mandolin, you need to roll the long notes with rapid picking.

It'll be fun and in bright pieces will soar.