Somehow the French gypsy jazz guitar/violin duo of the thirties and forties has eclipsed its Italian-American forebear which dominated the jazz age in the twenties. Django and Grappelli were standing on the shoulders of giants, it turns out. Where Grappelli plays like fancy stitching around the top edge of the rhythmic pocket, Joe Venuti is deep inside it, driving forward with confidently virtuosic technique.

Django was obviously a remarkable musician, but Eddie Lang is the “father of jazz guitar”. These two blues guitar duets with Lonnie Johnson (incidentally Johnson was a Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist and signer, and is credited with being the first to play an electric violin) seem to be at the same time textbook examples of the blues and also feature some exploratory reharmonizations that point towards things to come.

One more: “Blue Blues” by the Mound City (St. Louis) Blue Blowers, recorded in 1924. It features Eddie Lang on guitar and kazoo and comb (played with tissue paper). So good!