Exploring Vinyl : Jazz Guitar
07.08.06By Collin DavidThis past weekend was my first weekend of freedom in about six years. For the past half-decade and then some, I’ve either been bogged down by term papers or employment on every available weekend day. Let me tell you, if you want to crush a man’s soul into a half-dead, mutilated thing, make him work every weekend for six years. This past weekend, however, were the first free days of my new work schedule, and the sunshine was never brighter. I celebrated by doing my favorite thing to do in just about ever : going to tag sales and flea markets.
I’m usually on the hunt for about seventy-five different classes of objects at any given rummage sale, half of them indescribable until I see them, so I never walk away dissatisfied. This weekend’s dozen or so local tag sales and parking-lot jamborees (not to omit the driveway hootenannies) brought me a fair collection of jazz guitar records, which I’ve slowly been adding to my collection while converting all of their lost songs into a digital format to preserve them and share them with select friends.
It all started about six months ago when I dug a handful of records out of the garbage after a book sale. Among the treasures was an album by a man named Rudi Vannelli called ‘Maestro of the Guitar’. Solitary, solemn, bearing an odd resemblance to Vincent Price, and playing his guitar on the monotone cover, the record evoked some kind of secret peace and beauty that was new to me - and honestly, that’s a great gift that music can give. Especially music that you find in the garbage. Side 1 was interpretations of jazz classics, and on side 2 were classical arrangements.
So, I did a little bit of research on Rudi Vannelli, and I found that there’s more palpable proof that bigfoot exists. The man is a ghost as far as internet knowledge of him is concerned, having apparently recorded only one album in his lifetime, that album never making it to an official tape or CD release. From internet sources, I’ve been able to determine that this album was released by Verve Records in 1956 (and the recording sessions included some choice unreleased material), and that Rudi’s real name was Adolpho, sometimes ‘Adolph’. Of course, ‘Adolph’ wasn’t a very popular name any time after World War II, and Mr. Vannelli used the name ‘Rudi’, after Rudolph Valentino. Vannelli would play often in Boston’s Hotel Vendome, and I’ve been told that he’s somewhat of a musical legend in the area, studying under guitar legend Andre Sergovia. While the information I’ve found is sparse and not always accurate, an extraordinary and coincidental correspondence with a family friend of the Vannellis has reavealed a wealth of information regarding his career and personal life. The song that you’ll find below, ‘When Your Lover Has Gone’, was written by Vannelli for his wife, Kay.
With the agility of Django Reinhardt, the record sleeve makes sure that we know that there are NO overdubs in the recording. It’s Rudi and his ten fingers playing everything in real time. Stanley Jordan records would later make the same statements, the listener presumably disbelieving of a single guitarist’s dexterity and ability to play so many different things at once. Kaki King also keeps me in a state of complete amazement.
The record itself has reached prices of up to 75 dollars on rare album sites, and it’s been put onto an unofficial ‘bootleg’ CD - but the rest remains a mystery.
So, because the average jazz fan might not hear it otherwise, and I feel the need to preach the gospel of Vannelli, check out a few of his tunes and enjoy.
