ICE CUBES: Happy Eddie Lang Day

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ICE CUBES: Happy Eddie Lang Day

POSTED: Monday, October 25, 2010, 4:46 PM

Filed Under: Ice Cubes

On the night of its 20th anniversary celebration, Chris' Jazz CafÃ© owners Glenn Gerber and Mark DeNinno were lighting the new blue sign in front of their music saloon and laughing about what would come next. That's when they mentioned that they, along with Mayor Michael Nutter, were declaring Oct. 25 "Eddie Lang Day." Not just as a music fan and writer whose love of Salvatore Massaro (died in 1933 after a tonsillectomy suggested by his pal Bing Crosby) went beyond reviewing his box set in 2002 with fellow Philadelphian Joe Venuti. Lang was part of my family's heritage — he palled around with my grandfather Louis Amorosi (a violinist who ran orchestras throughout Philly and Atlantic City) and my great uncle (for whom I'm named after), bassist Angelo Gaudiosi who played with Lang and Venuti under the name "Angelo Carmen." Lang was a weird kind-of fixture in my life. I knew he was a quiet Catholic guy who held his pick tight and flat picked his guitar, that he probably invented single string playing, that he wasn't flashy like his buddy Venuti and that he lived near 7th & Clymer where a plaque calling him "the Father of Jazz Guitar" was erected 15 years ago. To my recollection, and that of my sax blowing dad, Alfonso's, Lang was Django Reinhardt before Django was hot jazz. Plus my dad blames Crosby for killing Lang still. My dad doesn't like Bing. He thinks Crosby blackballed crooner Russ Colombo, too. But enough about me — music is filled with forgotten legends. It's our job to pull them from history's wreckage. That's what this day's about at Chris' Jazz CafÃ©. Jef Lee Johnson and Jonathan Dichter will perform the famed Lonnie Johnson and Eddie Lang duets. The Blackbird Society Orchestra hosts and swings with Beau Django along for the ride. It'll be a sweet night. Be there. Just don't bring up Bing Crosby.

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