Dear lutenists, activated by the huge interest of my Mouton-Johnson comparison, it just came to my mind that the relation between American blues and French baroque perhaps is not at all a coincidence. Perhaps the real swing in the form of inegalite, "un-equalness" of notes, of performing music, really came from the French baroque music to the "new world"? As perhaps many know, France happened to have certain influence there in the eastern Norh America in the baroque times: see Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Louisiana#French_exploration_and_colonization_.281528.E2.80.931756.29
And for ex. the name "Louisina" was given to an area of land by the French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle, who named a region "Louisiana" to honor France's King Louis XIV in 1682. And that king happened to be be also the king of those musicians who were on the top of "inegalitee"... ;-) And remember what New Orleans is (was?) to the blues and jazz. And it is (was?) an Orleans, anyhow. Best, Arto To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
