Eddie Lang
The first jazz guitar virtuoso, Eddie Lang was everywhere in the late '20s; all of his fellow musicians knew that he was the best. A boyhood friend of Joe Venuti, Lang took violin lessons for 11 years but switched to guitar before he turned professional. In 1924, he debuted with the Mound City Blue Blowers and was soon in great demand for recording dates, both in the jazz world and in commercial settings. His sophisticated chord patterns made him a superior accompanist who uplifted everyone else's music, and he was also a fine single-note soloist. He often teamed up with violinist Venuti (including some classic duets) and played with Red Nichols' Five Pennies, Frankie Trumbauer, and Bix Beiderbecke (most memorably on "Singing the Blues"), the orchestras of Roger Wolfe Kahn, Jean Goldkette, and Paul Whiteman (appearing on one short number with Venuti in Whiteman's 1930 film The King of Jazz), and anyone else who could hire him. A measure of Lang's versatility and talents is that he mostly played the chordal parts on a series of duets with Lonnie Johnson (during which he used the pseudonym Blind Willie Dunn), yet on his two duets with Carl Kress (whose chord voicings were an advancement on Lang's), he played the single-note leads. Eddie Lang, who led some dates of his own during 1927-1929, worked regularly with Bing Crosby during the early '30s in addition to recording many sessions with Venuti. Tragically his premature death was caused by a botched operation on a tonsillectomy.
© Scott Yanow /TiVo
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Discography
9 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang Columbia and Okeh Sessions, Vol. 1
Jazz - Released by Legacy Recordings on Nov 16, 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang Columbia and Okeh Sessions, Vol. 4
Jazz - Released by Legacy Recordings on Dec 7, 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang Columbia and Okeh Sessions, Vol. 3
Jazz - Released by Legacy Recordings on Nov 30, 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Best Classic Jazz, Eddie Lang & Lonnie Johnson
Jazz - Released by SendDigital on Nov 21, 2002
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Eddie Lang's Souling
R&B - Released by Charly Records on Jun 25, 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang Columbia and Okeh Sessions, Vol 2
Jazz - Released by Legacy Recordings on Nov 23, 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Presenting Eddie Lang
Jazz - Released by Universal Digital Enterprises on Mar 17, 1927
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -