[Note: I’ll call this a blast from the past; I wrote this about five years ago, long before I started writing blogs. My idea was to advertise the need for banjo players to the trained jazz guitar crowd (still a good idea, I believe). I read it now, and I think “okay, a bit naïve, but my sentiment was already there.” I unabashedly publish it now, just because I now have an outlet for my ideas; The Banjo Snob! Here goes nothing!]
The four-string banjo was there at the birth of jazz before the Great War, in the mean streets and “sporting houses” of New Orleans! The five-string Classic banjo (open-back, gut strings, played with bare fingers) had recently proven itself a star of the fledgling recording industry; Thomas A. Edison experimented with all kinds of instruments, and found the banjo—with its bright, happy sound—to be the ideal recording voice. It was a natural fit for the coming Jazz Age.
The four-string banjo was still there at the coronation of jazz as the official soundtrack of the “Roaring ‘20’s.” Now in a beefed-up form—with four steel strings, a heavy brass tone-ring, an amplifying resonator, and played with a single pick—it also had the raw power to cut through the front-line horns in that acoustic-by-necessity age, and was thus the ideal stringed rhythm instrument for jazz and popular music—the prototype of the modern jazz guitar.
It was given a velvet throne in the very heart of the early jass ensemble, from which it provided the rhythmic snap and drive that made the horns shine and set the Charleston dancer’s feet on fire. In its supporting role—but especially as a solo instrument—it was the popular life of the party, the loud and brash wearer-of-the-lampshade! It ruled the Vaudeville stage and the radio airwaves. It became an across-the-pond sensation in the music halls of London and the bals musette of Paris, where a young Gypsy phenom by the name of Django Reinhardt wowed the folks with his banjo fireworks (I’ve often wondered about the present if he hadn’t switched to guitar following his transfiguration-by-fire. Actually, many future jazz guitarists were originally banjoists, or at least doublers).
Then a couple of things happened. . .
In the mid-20’s, the invention of electrical amplification and recording—the microphone—gave audible voice to the softer and more melodic guitar; an unfair technological advantage if there ever was one! How ironic that the banjo—at its zenith of popularity—should be chosen to demonstrate the new talking movie technology (Roy Smeck in 1926, and Eddie Peabody in 1928); the very thing that would contribute so much to its demise! The subsequent arrival of Eddie Lang (the first great jazz guitarist) to the New York music scene helped to set off a snow-balling exodus from banjo to guitar.
Then in 1929, the decade-long Jazz Age party came to a sudden, stock market-crashing end; loud, prohibition-fired beer-drinking music—and the banjo—was out; sentimental, depression-era cry-in-your-beer music—and the guitar—was in! And as a desired instrument for hip aspiring young musicians in the rapidly maturing art form of jazz, the banjo was finished before it could really get started (the guitar was admittedly a better fit for the new sound and the increasingly complex harmonic structure); from that point on, it was—and remains—the red-headed stepchild of jazz, shunned from the party it helped start.
Oh sure, the jazz banjo limped along—too proud and stubborn to completely die—but mainly as a novelty solo instrument. Dance bands continued to play for years the music of the ‘20’s for the teenagers of the ‘20’s; the wise working guitarist kept a banjo on his stand for those now-nostalgic tunes. Harry Reser and his Cliquot Club Eskimos maintained a popular radio show up to the mid-‘30’s. Eddie Peabody—that energetic hero of the 1920’s Vaudeville stage (the Rock Star of his age, really)—managed to remain a household name and make a good living (and fairly popular recordings) right up to his on-stage death in 1970. And there were others who carried on. . .
The banjo has survived to an extent as a novelty instrument (wherever happy, toe-tapping music thrives!), and of course still as the heartbeat of the band in the growing underground Trad Jazz movement (although there is a shortage of good, authentic players). Before the Crash, the instrument itself had evolved into a Jazz-Age, Art-Deco masterpiece that has rarely been surpassed. Surviving, playable examples carry an insane price tag today; many of them can be seen (but alas, not played!) in the American Banjo Museum in Oklahoma City, OK. There are a few specialty companies and individuals today making high-quality instruments (none of the historic companies, however), and a good working instrument can be had for under $1000 (though modern-day works-of-art can top $30,000!).
Eddie Peabody tried in vain for many years to revive the banjo’s mainstream popularity; he succeeded to the extent that he kept it from completely dying. He and his first-generation contemporaries played an important role in the 1960’s “pizza-parlor revival”—the last great popular flash-in-the-pan for the four-string banjo; a period when many of today’s banjo bands were founded and their players got started (myself included). With his death (and the rest of the founding generation) seemingly resumed the instrument’s long-delayed death throes, and now his aging fans and students and a few others are about all that’s left still carrying the torch in America.
Other countries are more loyal to old favorites (and less susceptible to soup du jour fads); the jazz banjo and its music (actually, just about everything historically American) is more popular today in Europe and Japan then in its birthplace, even among the young.
Yet, there is hope. . . Today, there seems to be a growing interest in re-creating the old sounds, and in integrating those old sounds into the new. The 1920’s are cool again! Thanks to certain internet resources, young people—the real drivers of change—are waking up to find there’s more to music than Top-40 crap! We are also swiftly approaching the 100th anniversary of the first recorded jazz (which ironically didn’t include the banjo). It is my sincere belief that the four-string banjo stands poised to reemerge as a force to be reckoned with in the mainstream music world. This is where you may or may not come in. . .
What today’s jazz banjo world needs more than anything else is young, top-drawer players; players who are musically trained, and who have an interest in recreating/preserving the past, and a mind-set for moving the instrument forward; players who can also teach, and who are young and cool enough to inspire future generations; players who will be respectful of and thankful to the older generation as they take hold of the sputtering torch and breath new fire into it. In short, we need Harry Reser and Eddie Peabody, reincarnated in flip-flops and board shorts! I like to think of it as modern-day Bohemian coolness, just waiting to be re-“discovered!”
I believe that you—an experienced and trained jazz guitarist—are the ideal candidate! I’m not a guitarist myself (so I suppose I’m a fine one to talk), but I should think that the historically oriented jazz guitarist would want to know how to play the ancestral forebear! You certainly have the musical and technical skills necessary to excel as a banjoist. I’ve heard many jazz musicians say you should learn different instruments and styles to broaden your overall musical understanding. Well, here is the perfect opportunity! Played idiomatically (not like a guitar), it is definitely different (though you can play it like a guitar also).
There are actually two different jazz banjos; the Tenor and the Plectrum. Each has their advantages/disadvantages/unique musical challenges, and their own unique solo repertoire. Yes, the four-string banjo is a serious and challenging solo instrument, and its unamplified sound commands attention (don’t take it up if you don’t like to draw attention to yourself!). Think about that the next time you are on a gig and the power goes out, leaving your guitar audibly challenged! Want to be the unplugged life of the party?
One last point: Even jazz musicians need love! Unless you’re a top-drawer player/personality, as a jazz guitarist you are one in a million. . .as a jazz banjoist however, you would be one in a thousand! And as a top-drawer player, that ratio would be more like one/fifty (or so, depending on your definition of top-drawer). The American four-string banjo world today consists of a few thousand hobbyists—who would be overjoyed to welcome fresh young blood to their conventions—and a few dozen working professionals, many of whom (myself included) could use a good musical kick in the pants.
My numbers may be wrong—who really keeps track? Needless to say, we are an endangered species. My point is, it is a tiny but wonderfully supportive sub-culture that would give you a hero’s welcome, treat you like royalty, throw rose petals at your feet (okay, I may be exaggerating a bit there!), and give you the shirt off its back if it felt you needed it; I guarantee you won’t find a friendlier, more caring bunch of people! And you would be famous, in a big fish/small pond sort of way!
One of the challenges wannabe banjoists have always faced is one of resources; where to find an instrument, teacher, or like-minded players? I would be overjoyed to help you find those resources: I can be reached at banjoplayer1@yahoo.com. Won’t you join us in our mission to restore America’s instrument to its rightful place?