Robert Johnson and the electric guitar

What is it about Robert Johnson that invites speculation? From his (re)appearance in popular music in the 1960s, to his resurgence in the early 1990s, he must be the African-American musician about whom most drivel has been written and spoken.

Now that the biography by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow is out—my review: essential reading—, speculation should diminish significantly. Never mind that, I now offer you a bit of guessing, at least to provide some context regarding Johnson and the electric guitar, an instrument with a tradition in blues and rock heavily influenced by Johnson, even though he never really played it himself.

The man who was there

John Coltrane and Rudy Van Gelder, early 1960s

Phonography is one of the motors of jazz. Without recorded sound, the fast evolution of the music would not have happened. A recording allows however many repetitions necessary to assimilate the music. Without recordings, the contact with remote sonic cultures would be much, much harder.

Besides conveniency, phonography has given jazz an aesthetic. And counter to intuition, given the hundreds of thousands of jazz recordings produced and still available, a large of that urbane, sophisticated, aesthetic is due to a single person: Rudy Van Gelder, RVG, who passed away yesterday morning, aged 91.