I must be one of the least qualified persons on earth to write about banjos. I’m one of the few self-styled musicians who went through the skiffle and rock eras of the fifties and sixties without learning to strum a single chord on any stringed instrument. I put it down to a string phobia brought on by failed violin lessons at age nine.
I do like listening to banjos, though; and there is a surprising variety
of sounds produced by the best banjo players of the classic and trad jazz
bands. Not too surprising, I suppose, considering the variety of instruments
they played and the different tunings they used. Most players from the
classic period played either a long-necked G banjo, or the shorter tenor
banjo. These had different tunings. The long-necked five-string banjo,
tuned similarly to a G banjo, was rarely used in jazz, but was very much
part of the early ragtime scene and still is the instrument of choice in
bluegrass bands. However, Bud Scott probably used a five-stringed instrument
on early recordings with King Oliver and Johnny Dodds, and he sometimes produced
unusual tones by plucking two strings at once, much as modern jazz guitarist
Wes Montgomery did forty years later. Johnny St Cyr played a six-stringed
banjo, tuned like a guitar, which he is seen holding in a well-known photograph
of the Armstrong Hot Five. Perversely, Eddie Condon, in switching from banjo
to guitar in the early thirties, stuck with the four-stringed instrument
and, for the rest of his life played a four-stringed guitar tuned like a
banjo. Guitar superstars Eddie Lang and Django Reinhardt made their earliest
recordings playing banjo.
My favourite banjo players tend to come from the classic period of the twenties and thirties. This is probably because the more primitive recording techniques make it essential to listen carefully to hear the banjo’s subtle contribution to the ensemble sound. By the time that the trad boom came along the banjo was as prominent as the front-line instruments and much of the subtlety was gone.
The early Duke Ellington band produced many musicians who went on to become household names: Johnny Hodges, Barney Bigard, Bubber Miley, Joe Nanton. Not so well known is the name of Fred Guy who played banjo with Ellington in the early days and continued on guitar into the 1940s. But Fred Guy contributed a lot to the Ellington sound with his crisp, light, understated rhythm. You have to listen carefully for the subtleties, the shuffle rhythms, the shifts of emphasis, the broken chords, the occasional trill. Listen to Sweet Mama from 1928 for an example of his style
Eddie Condon is best remembered as a promoter of jazz, a superb raconteur
and an dedicated imbiber. When asked for his opinion of bop musicians in
the 1940s, he remarked, “They like to flatten their fifths, we drink ours.”
But Eddie was no mean banjo player as a young man. His shifting chords blend
marvellously with the rhythm section, sometimes employing a trill like a
Chicago-style trumpet flare, and moving at times into a forceful shuffle rhythm
which defies you to keep your feet still. One of the best examples of his
art is on Fats Waller’s Minor Drag.
I first noticed left-handed banjo virtuoso Lee Blair on 1950s recordings with the Wilbur De Paris Band, and only then traced his career back to marvellous contributions to Jelly Roll Morton recordings thirty years earlier. Kansas City Stomps shows off his style well: the light springy beat, the high pitched chord inversions, the trilled glisses, and his varied syncopated rhythm. Later, with the De Paris band, he was featured prominently. ‘Banjoker’ is a splendid example of how a banjo solo can sound in the right hands.
It seems a shame that in recent years the banjo has been regarded as a sort of third division musical instrument like the kazoo and the jaws harp, and has become the topic of a species of humour known as banjokes. I must admit, though, that some of these jokes are quite funny and it would be unfair to end this tribute to banjos and banjoists without reference to them. As a sad example. “How do you know if a banjo player is at your door?…..He can’t find the key, the knocking speeds up, and they don’t know when to come in.” It is surely a measure of the instrument’s greatness that it can inspire a website of the proportions of The Canonical List of Banjo Jokes.
Yarl River Jazz Band
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