[Dixielandjazz] Lute or Tenor Guitar?

[Stephen G Barbone]

If you look up Tenor Guitar on Wikipedia it references tenor guitars  
as lute shaped early on. it also mentions Condon as a Plectrum Guitar  
player, Gibson L7, which guitar he used in NYC at Nick's in the 1930's  
and at his own joint after WW 2 until his passing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenor_guitar

In Condon's "We Called it Music", he says on page 122:

"The banjo had gone out of fashion while I was playing a lute with the  
Blue Blowers."

That would tie into your video clip of Condon with them in 1931,  
playing what is referred to as a lute.

Question is, What is a lute? Perhaps if one uses the broad definition  
of "any plucked stringed instrument with a neck and a deep round  
back", then Condon could properly call what he played a lute.

Also, on various "lute" websites, one finds all sorts of posts about  
lutes and lute guitars like this one from a classical lute site.

"The German lute/guitar is in all respects a normal guitar, tuned like  
it and played like it. In the German Romantic music, the lute had a  
much higher standing than the guitar and                       
represented the romantic yearning for nature, simplicity, etc. The  
romantic image of the lute      fitted better than the guitar's image."
"However, to bring the lute back was not an option: too difficult, too  
impractical. Nobody could play the lute, but everybody could play the  
guitar, so they simply made a lute-shaped guitar,  which they referred  
to as 'laute' (lute)."
"As far as I know, the Germans are the only ones to make such an  
instrument. . . ."
Oskar Chilesotti played a "guitarlute" in Italy as early as 1889.

The writer must be a "Classical" guy and not into Folk or Jazz. <grin>

I guess definitions of lutes, guitars and guitar lutes etc., are like  
jazz. They are whatever you want them to be. <grin>

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband