<\/title>\n<\/head>\n<body>\nDjango<\/b> \nBy Michael Dregni \n \nA favorite photograph of Django Reinhardt pictures him standing\nalongside Stéphane Grappelli, the duo looking suave and\nsophisticated\nin white tuxedos. The photograph is steeped in the aura of 1930s Paris,\nwhere the Quintette du Hot Club de France was formed: charming, cool,\nclassy. \n \nGrappelli-Django’s musical partner and foil, rival and\nco-composer-holds his magic violin under his arm. Django leans casually\non his famous Selmer guitar, his left hand carefully placed in his suit\npocket to hide his disfigurement. This is the hand that he not only\nlearned to play in spite of, but the hand that also shaped his style\ndue to its limitations. \n \n<img\nsrc=\"http:\/\/www.brainclick.net\/images\/articles\/20050906185939537_2.jpg\"\nalt=\"\" align=\"left\" height=\"176\" width=\"144\">But\nit’s the look on Django’s face that always makes you examine this\npicture closely. It’s a look that comes through in many photographs of\nthe Gypsy guitarist: His dark eyes seem to twinkle. His pencil-thin\nmustache seems slightly devilish. And his smile…. His smile is\nhappy-go-lucky, mysterious, and omniscient at the same time. \n \nAbove all, Django’s smile seems to hold the key to his music. \n \nThe Music<\/b> \nFrom 1928 to 1953, Django recorded some 750 to 1,000 sides-counts vary.\nMuch of his music is readily available today on numerous compact disc\nreissues and complete, chronological sets. Add to this the alternate\ntakes, unissued sides, radio broadcasts, and live recordings recently\nissued, and you soon realize that Django was the definition of prolific. \n \nIronically, many people’s first impressions of Django’s music are often\nnegative due to the medium. Unless you were lucky enough to see him\nplay in person, most people first hear him via his recordings on 78-rpm\ndiscs-or LP or CD collections that are often made from the 78s instead\nof the masters, and even the masters are forty-five to sixty years old. \n \nListening to the QHCF for the first time, the first sound that greets\nthe ears is hiss and static as the recording begins. Then the full band\nerupts into the first chorus with three acoustic guitars, Grappelli’s\nviolin soaring above, and a string bass below, the band’s sound often\npushing the sonic limits of another era’s single-mike mono recording\ntechnology. The sound is akin to the cacophony of the modern\ncivilization of the 1930s: The then-new sound of automobile traffic,\nmachines, airplanes, street noises, a growing population of people. \n \nAnd then Django’s guitar cuts through the band and the music blossoms.\nHe takes the lead as the rhythm guitars fall back into the famous\nboom-chick, boom-chick of la pompe, the jazz manouche rhythm. Django’s\nguitar is sublime and pure, unhurried in its cascades of elegant\ndiminished arpeggios. It’s the sound of one man’s genius breaking\nthrough the chaos of the modern world. \n \nWhen Django begins to play, that’s when the listener is hooked. \n \n \nThe Legend<\/b> \nThe story of Jean Baptiste “Django” Reinhardt has all the makings of\nlegend. \n \nHe was born in a gypsy caravan during the night of January 23, 1910,\nnear the Belgian town of Liberchies, neighboring Charleroi. His\nunmarried mother, known to audiences as “La Belle Laurence,” was a\ndancer and acrobat working with a wandering troupe of Gypsy comedians\nand musicians. \n \n<img\nsrc=\"http:\/\/www.brainclick.net\/images\/articles\/20050906185939537_3.jpg\"\nalt=\"\" align=\"left\" height=\"120\" width=\"178\">Many\nhave since referred to Django as a Belgian Gypsy, due to his place of\nbirth, or a French Gypsy, as he lived most of his life in France. But\nthe nationality was never important; his cultural background as a Gypsy\nwas. \n \nSome 2,000 years ago, the Gypsy tribe known as the Sinti are believed\nto have migrated from the banks of the Sinti River in India (from which\nthey derived their name) to the Persian court, where they found work as\nmusicians. From Persia, the Gypsies traveled what is known as the\nRomany trail leading through the Middle East, into North Africa and\nEurope. Europeans, believing these wandering people to come from Egypt,\ncorrupted their name into “Gypsy.” \n \nOften chased away from “civilization,” the Gypsies have become nomadic\nof necessity more than desire. Forced to live a transitory life, they\nmanaged to survive on their skills as musicians, entertainers,\nmetalsmiths, and traders. They have become a people of the diaspora,\nwithout a homeland and without a promised land. \n \nDjango grew up a wanderer. Living in a caravan-roulotte in French or\nverdine in the language of the Rom-Django’s mother led him and his\nyounger brother Joseph, known affectionately as “Nin-Nin,” through\nFrance, south to Nice, across to Italy, Corsica, Algeria, and then back\nto Paris. The family would live on and off over the years in caravans\non the nether zones at the edge of Paris by one of the old city gates. \n \nDjango learned to play first violin, then banjo. The banjo was the\nprime rhythm instrument before the ascendance of the guitar as the\nbanjo’s unamplified resonator blessed it with volume and the cutting,\ntrebly tone gave it the power to accompany an accordeon. Django, still\nin his teens, played banjo, then guitar, with the popular Italian Gypsy\naccordeonist Vetese Guérino and others in the cafés,\ndancehalls, night\nclubs, and at the bals des Auvergnats, named for the people of the\nFrench province of Auvergne who migrated to the city, bringing the folk\nmusic that became a source of musette. \n \nPlaying his instrument, Django appeared to have a rare talent as a\nmusician, an ability respected and admired among Gypsies. As Charles\nDelaunay, Django’s French friend and manager, wrote in his colorful\nbiography of the guitarist: “As water is a fish’s element and the air a\nbird’s, music was Django’s.” \n \n \nThe Tragedy<\/b> \nAnd then tragedy struck. At one o’clock in the morning of November 2,\n1928, Django returned from a club to his caravan. His first wife, known\nto history only as Bella, had fashioned flowers from the highly\nflammable proto-plastic, celluloid, to sell in the market; a candle\nDjango was holding ignited the celluloid and in minutes the caravan was\naflame. Django and his wife escaped, but not before Django suffered\nhorrible burns over half of his body. \n \n<img\nsrc=\"http:\/\/www.brainclick.net\/images\/articles\/20050906185939537_4.jpg\"\nalt=\"\" align=\"right\" height=\"218\" width=\"155\">Django’s\nleft hand was disfigured from the burns: His two small fingers were\ntwisted and limited in use; his ring and index fingers still\nfunctioned. His family thought he would never play guitar again, and as\nDelaunay writes, the men of the caravan wept. \n \nBut while bed-ridden and recovering, Django taught himself, slowly and\nsurely, to play again. Grappelli himself explained it best in a 1954\ninterview with the British music magazine Melody Maker after Django’s\ndeath: “He acquired amazing dexterity with those first two fingers, but\nthat didn’t mean he never employed the others. He learned to grip the\nguitar with his little finger on the E string and the next finger on\nthe B. That accounts for some of those chord progressions which Django\nwas probably the first to perform on the guitar.” \n \n \nThe Jazz<\/b> \nIt was when Django met Stéphane Grappelli and began jamming on\nAmerican\nswing tunes that a new epoch in European jazz dawned. The Hot Club\nquintet formed in late 1934, named for the Hot Club de France, a\nmeeting place for jazz musicians and fans in Paris. Together, Django\nand Grappelli were an inspired pair, similar to the American\nguitar-and-violin duo of Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti. \n \nDjango’s playing with the QHCF in its glory years of 1937-1939 was\nthoroughly modern, infused by the wild, free, exciting sound of\nAmerican jazz that transformed the old into the new. Swing supercharged\nthe music, and the sound of the QHCF came to define an era. \n \nIn hindsight, it’s important to note that Django was not a solitary\nGypsy guitar genius, but part of a style. Gitan Gypsies Poulette\nCastro, Laro Castro, Matteo Garcia, and Gusti Malha were the patriarchs\nof Gypsy guitarists at the time when Django first starting playing in\nthe bals-musette and jazz hot clubs of Paris. Malha played with Gypsy\naccordeonist Guerino and others, composing and recording early musette\nclassics such as “La Valse des Niglos,” or “The Waltz of the\nHedgehogs,” named for a favored delicacy of Gypsy cuisine. It was\nPoulette Castro, Garcia, and Malha’s style of playing that set the tone\nof the times and caught Django’s ear. \n \nDjango, however, was an audacious pioneer, infusing musette with jazz.\nInitially, musette and swing were two camps of musical styles that did\nnot want to mix: As the great accordeonist Jo Privat recalled, “There\nwere ‘No swing dancing’ signs in musette ballrooms. Swing could provoke\nbrawls. Guys who like to hold their girls tight didn’t like that.” \n \nBut to Django, it was the swing that made it mean something. As\nDelaunay quotes Django himself: “Jazz attracted me because in it I\nfound a formal perfection and instrumental precision that I admire in\nclassical music, but which popular music doesn’t have.” \n \nDjango was not the only young Gypsy guitarist following in the early\nmasters’ footsteps. The Gitan Gypsy brothers Baro, Sarane, and Matelo\nFerret-as well as their cousin, Challain Ferret-remain the most famous\nof the other Gypsy guitarists. The Ferrets also taught themselves\nbanjo, then guitar, and played in and recorded with Parisian musette\nbands, often playing daring and inventive solos and blending bebop with\nwaltzes to create a unique style. Django and the Ferret brothers’\ncareers were intermixed. Sarane, Matelo, and Challain played rhythm in\nthe QHCF at times, but it was Baro who would record numerous sides and\nplay with the quintet on and off for many years. \n \n \nThe Man<\/b> \nStories about Django are many. As a reviewer of the Hot Club’s concert\npremiere in 1934 in Jazz Tango magazine hinted: “It might be said that\nhe was the revelation of the concert. He is a curious musician, with a\nstyle like no one else’s… Moreover, Reinhardt is a charming fellow\nwho seems to offer in his mode of existence the same whimsical\nimagination that illumines his solos….” \n \nListen to these stories that illuminate Django the man: \n \nHe was terrified of ghosts. He could not stop himself from gambling. He\nadored movies, particularly American gangster films, and from them\ndeveloped a fondness for wide-brimmed hats that he liked to perch askew\non his head and tuck over one eye. He was amazingly adept at games,\nfrom pinball to pool. He had a pet monkey. \n \nAnd then there was the time he met Andrés Segovia. He played for\nthe\nSpanish classical maestro a short jazz crepuscule on his Selmer guitar.\nWhen Django finished, Segovia was dazzled by the piece and asked for a\ntranscription. Django laughed and shrugged, saying that it was merely\nan improvisation. \n \nAnd there was Django’s pride, illustrated by the story of how the Hot\nClub quartet became a quintet. Grappelli told the tale: “I could see\nsomething was worrying Django. And when I asked him what the trouble\nwas one day, he replied: ‘It doesn’t matter all that much. It’s just\nthat when you’re playing, Stéphane, you’ve got both [QHCF\nguitarist\nRoger] Chaput and me backing you, but when I’m soloing I’ve only got\none guitar behind me!'” With that, Django’s brother Joseph was hired as\na second rhythm guitarist. \n \nAnd there was Django’s sense of style. Grappelli: “I shall never forget\nthe first day Django put on evening dress-with bright red socks. It\ntook some time to explain, without injuring his feelings, that red\nsocks were not the right thing. Django insisted that he liked it that\nway, because red looked so well with black.” \n \nAnd finally there was his innocence, a Gypsy out of step with the\nmodern world. Again, Grappelli told the story, telling of how the Hot\nClub was invited to dine with the king of Belgium during a Belgian\ntour. Django, not knowing better, ate his lettuce with his fingers-but,\nas Grappelli remembered, he somehow did it with great style and class\nso it seemed alright. \n \n \nThe New Beginning<\/b> \nWorld War II split the cornerstones of the QHCF: Django stayed in\nFrance while Grappelli was in England. Freed from the confines of the\nQHCF, Django could explore other venues and band arrangements, setting\nthe stage for a second era of Django’s music as he broadened his\nvocabulary of styles. \n \nDjango replaced Grappelli and his violin with the clarinet of Hubert\nRostaing, creating a band sound no doubt influenced by recordings of\nBenny Goodman and Charlie Christian. Django also played with Fud\nCandrix’s big band. After the war in 1946, Django regrouped with\nGrappelli for a short time before setting sail to tour the United\nStates with Duke Ellington and his orchestra. \n \nDuring the 1940s, Django experimented with going electric. Devoted to\nhis acoustic Selmer guitar but having trouble cutting through the sound\nof the larger bands he was playing in, he affixed a magnetic\nFrench-made Stimer pickup to the petite bouche soundhole. The sound\ncreated a new dimension in his playing, which is infused with bebop he\nheard in America. \n \n \nThe Coda<\/b> \n<img\nsrc=\"http:\/\/www.brainclick.net\/images\/articles\/20050906185939537_5.jpg\"\nalt=\"\" align=\"left\" height=\"251\" width=\"275\">At\nthe dawn of the 1950s, Django moved his small family-including his\nsecond wife Sophie “Naguine” Ziegler and their son Babik-from Paris to\nthe town of Samois-sur-Seine, just south of the capital. “I think he\nended up living in Samois because it was a retreat for him where he\ncould relax and rethink his music,” Babik recalled. “He was very\ninspired at the time and listened to everything from Beethoven to\nbebop\ufffdespecially bebop.” \n \nDjango was in semi-retirement, playing now and then, but spending more\ntime fishing. On May 15, 1953, he was struck by a fatal stroke. He was\nbut forty-three years old. \n \nDjango Reinhardt lived a long life in his forty-three years. It’s\nimpossible to sum up his influence on jazz as that influence continues\nto this day. Matelo Ferret’s sons Boulou and Elios Ferré still\ncarry\nDjango’s torch to the extremes of musical creativity, and Gypsy jazz is\ncurrently in a renaissance with Hot Club bands in Japan, Norway,\nSardinia, San Francisco, and almost anywhere else that jazz is heard. \n \nPerhaps it’s best for Django’s old cohort, Stéphane Grappelli,\nto have\nthe final word. He summed up Django’s playing in the 1954 Melody Maker\ninterview: “He did more for the guitar than any other man in jazz. His\nway of playing was unlike anyone else’s, and jazz is different because\nof him. There can be many other fine guitarists, but never can there be\nanother Reinhardt. I am sure of that.”\n<\/body>\n<\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Django By Michael Dregni A favorite photograph of Django Reinhardt pictures him standing alongside Stéphane Grappelli, the duo looking suave and sophisticated in white tuxedos. The photograph is steeped in the aura of 1930s Paris, where the Quintette du Hot Club de France was formed: charming, cool, classy. Grappelli-Django’s musical partner and foil, rival and […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-site-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":54,"date":"2004-02-10T08:58:10","date_gmt":"2004-02-10T08:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/?p=54"},"modified":"2004-02-10T08:58:10","modified_gmt":"2004-02-10T08:58:10","slug":"django_reinhardt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/django_reinhardt\/","title":{"rendered":"Django Reinhardt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\n\n\n<\/title>\n<\/head>\n<body>\nDjango<\/b> \nBy Michael Dregni \n \nA favorite photograph of Django Reinhardt pictures him standing\nalongside Stéphane Grappelli, the duo looking suave and\nsophisticated\nin white tuxedos. The photograph is steeped in the aura of 1930s Paris,\nwhere the Quintette du Hot Club de France was formed: charming, cool,\nclassy. \n \nGrappelli-Django’s musical partner and foil, rival and\nco-composer-holds his magic violin under his arm. Django leans casually\non his famous Selmer guitar, his left hand carefully placed in his suit\npocket to hide his disfigurement. This is the hand that he not only\nlearned to play in spite of, but the hand that also shaped his style\ndue to its limitations. \n \n<img\nsrc=\"http:\/\/www.brainclick.net\/images\/articles\/20050906185939537_2.jpg\"\nalt=\"\" align=\"left\" height=\"176\" width=\"144\">But\nit’s the look on Django’s face that always makes you examine this\npicture closely. It’s a look that comes through in many photographs of\nthe Gypsy guitarist: His dark eyes seem to twinkle. His pencil-thin\nmustache seems slightly devilish. And his smile…. His smile is\nhappy-go-lucky, mysterious, and omniscient at the same time. \n \nAbove all, Django’s smile seems to hold the key to his music. \n \nThe Music<\/b> \nFrom 1928 to 1953, Django recorded some 750 to 1,000 sides-counts vary.\nMuch of his music is readily available today on numerous compact disc\nreissues and complete, chronological sets. Add to this the alternate\ntakes, unissued sides, radio broadcasts, and live recordings recently\nissued, and you soon realize that Django was the definition of prolific. \n \nIronically, many people’s first impressions of Django’s music are often\nnegative due to the medium. Unless you were lucky enough to see him\nplay in person, most people first hear him via his recordings on 78-rpm\ndiscs-or LP or CD collections that are often made from the 78s instead\nof the masters, and even the masters are forty-five to sixty years old. \n \nListening to the QHCF for the first time, the first sound that greets\nthe ears is hiss and static as the recording begins. Then the full band\nerupts into the first chorus with three acoustic guitars, Grappelli’s\nviolin soaring above, and a string bass below, the band’s sound often\npushing the sonic limits of another era’s single-mike mono recording\ntechnology. The sound is akin to the cacophony of the modern\ncivilization of the 1930s: The then-new sound of automobile traffic,\nmachines, airplanes, street noises, a growing population of people. \n \nAnd then Django’s guitar cuts through the band and the music blossoms.\nHe takes the lead as the rhythm guitars fall back into the famous\nboom-chick, boom-chick of la pompe, the jazz manouche rhythm. Django’s\nguitar is sublime and pure, unhurried in its cascades of elegant\ndiminished arpeggios. It’s the sound of one man’s genius breaking\nthrough the chaos of the modern world. \n \nWhen Django begins to play, that’s when the listener is hooked. \n \n \nThe Legend<\/b> \nThe story of Jean Baptiste “Django” Reinhardt has all the makings of\nlegend. \n \nHe was born in a gypsy caravan during the night of January 23, 1910,\nnear the Belgian town of Liberchies, neighboring Charleroi. His\nunmarried mother, known to audiences as “La Belle Laurence,” was a\ndancer and acrobat working with a wandering troupe of Gypsy comedians\nand musicians. \n \n<img\nsrc=\"http:\/\/www.brainclick.net\/images\/articles\/20050906185939537_3.jpg\"\nalt=\"\" align=\"left\" height=\"120\" width=\"178\">Many\nhave since referred to Django as a Belgian Gypsy, due to his place of\nbirth, or a French Gypsy, as he lived most of his life in France. But\nthe nationality was never important; his cultural background as a Gypsy\nwas. \n \nSome 2,000 years ago, the Gypsy tribe known as the Sinti are believed\nto have migrated from the banks of the Sinti River in India (from which\nthey derived their name) to the Persian court, where they found work as\nmusicians. From Persia, the Gypsies traveled what is known as the\nRomany trail leading through the Middle East, into North Africa and\nEurope. Europeans, believing these wandering people to come from Egypt,\ncorrupted their name into “Gypsy.” \n \nOften chased away from “civilization,” the Gypsies have become nomadic\nof necessity more than desire. Forced to live a transitory life, they\nmanaged to survive on their skills as musicians, entertainers,\nmetalsmiths, and traders. They have become a people of the diaspora,\nwithout a homeland and without a promised land. \n \nDjango grew up a wanderer. Living in a caravan-roulotte in French or\nverdine in the language of the Rom-Django’s mother led him and his\nyounger brother Joseph, known affectionately as “Nin-Nin,” through\nFrance, south to Nice, across to Italy, Corsica, Algeria, and then back\nto Paris. The family would live on and off over the years in caravans\non the nether zones at the edge of Paris by one of the old city gates. \n \nDjango learned to play first violin, then banjo. The banjo was the\nprime rhythm instrument before the ascendance of the guitar as the\nbanjo’s unamplified resonator blessed it with volume and the cutting,\ntrebly tone gave it the power to accompany an accordeon. Django, still\nin his teens, played banjo, then guitar, with the popular Italian Gypsy\naccordeonist Vetese Guérino and others in the cafés,\ndancehalls, night\nclubs, and at the bals des Auvergnats, named for the people of the\nFrench province of Auvergne who migrated to the city, bringing the folk\nmusic that became a source of musette. \n \nPlaying his instrument, Django appeared to have a rare talent as a\nmusician, an ability respected and admired among Gypsies. As Charles\nDelaunay, Django’s French friend and manager, wrote in his colorful\nbiography of the guitarist: “As water is a fish’s element and the air a\nbird’s, music was Django’s.” \n \n \nThe Tragedy<\/b> \nAnd then tragedy struck. At one o’clock in the morning of November 2,\n1928, Django returned from a club to his caravan. His first wife, known\nto history only as Bella, had fashioned flowers from the highly\nflammable proto-plastic, celluloid, to sell in the market; a candle\nDjango was holding ignited the celluloid and in minutes the caravan was\naflame. Django and his wife escaped, but not before Django suffered\nhorrible burns over half of his body. \n \n<img\nsrc=\"http:\/\/www.brainclick.net\/images\/articles\/20050906185939537_4.jpg\"\nalt=\"\" align=\"right\" height=\"218\" width=\"155\">Django’s\nleft hand was disfigured from the burns: His two small fingers were\ntwisted and limited in use; his ring and index fingers still\nfunctioned. His family thought he would never play guitar again, and as\nDelaunay writes, the men of the caravan wept. \n \nBut while bed-ridden and recovering, Django taught himself, slowly and\nsurely, to play again. Grappelli himself explained it best in a 1954\ninterview with the British music magazine Melody Maker after Django’s\ndeath: “He acquired amazing dexterity with those first two fingers, but\nthat didn’t mean he never employed the others. He learned to grip the\nguitar with his little finger on the E string and the next finger on\nthe B. That accounts for some of those chord progressions which Django\nwas probably the first to perform on the guitar.” \n \n \nThe Jazz<\/b> \nIt was when Django met Stéphane Grappelli and began jamming on\nAmerican\nswing tunes that a new epoch in European jazz dawned. The Hot Club\nquintet formed in late 1934, named for the Hot Club de France, a\nmeeting place for jazz musicians and fans in Paris. Together, Django\nand Grappelli were an inspired pair, similar to the American\nguitar-and-violin duo of Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti. \n \nDjango’s playing with the QHCF in its glory years of 1937-1939 was\nthoroughly modern, infused by the wild, free, exciting sound of\nAmerican jazz that transformed the old into the new. Swing supercharged\nthe music, and the sound of the QHCF came to define an era. \n \nIn hindsight, it’s important to note that Django was not a solitary\nGypsy guitar genius, but part of a style. Gitan Gypsies Poulette\nCastro, Laro Castro, Matteo Garcia, and Gusti Malha were the patriarchs\nof Gypsy guitarists at the time when Django first starting playing in\nthe bals-musette and jazz hot clubs of Paris. Malha played with Gypsy\naccordeonist Guerino and others, composing and recording early musette\nclassics such as “La Valse des Niglos,” or “The Waltz of the\nHedgehogs,” named for a favored delicacy of Gypsy cuisine. It was\nPoulette Castro, Garcia, and Malha’s style of playing that set the tone\nof the times and caught Django’s ear. \n \nDjango, however, was an audacious pioneer, infusing musette with jazz.\nInitially, musette and swing were two camps of musical styles that did\nnot want to mix: As the great accordeonist Jo Privat recalled, “There\nwere ‘No swing dancing’ signs in musette ballrooms. Swing could provoke\nbrawls. Guys who like to hold their girls tight didn’t like that.” \n \nBut to Django, it was the swing that made it mean something. As\nDelaunay quotes Django himself: “Jazz attracted me because in it I\nfound a formal perfection and instrumental precision that I admire in\nclassical music, but which popular music doesn’t have.” \n \nDjango was not the only young Gypsy guitarist following in the early\nmasters’ footsteps. The Gitan Gypsy brothers Baro, Sarane, and Matelo\nFerret-as well as their cousin, Challain Ferret-remain the most famous\nof the other Gypsy guitarists. The Ferrets also taught themselves\nbanjo, then guitar, and played in and recorded with Parisian musette\nbands, often playing daring and inventive solos and blending bebop with\nwaltzes to create a unique style. Django and the Ferret brothers’\ncareers were intermixed. Sarane, Matelo, and Challain played rhythm in\nthe QHCF at times, but it was Baro who would record numerous sides and\nplay with the quintet on and off for many years. \n \n \nThe Man<\/b> \nStories about Django are many. As a reviewer of the Hot Club’s concert\npremiere in 1934 in Jazz Tango magazine hinted: “It might be said that\nhe was the revelation of the concert. He is a curious musician, with a\nstyle like no one else’s… Moreover, Reinhardt is a charming fellow\nwho seems to offer in his mode of existence the same whimsical\nimagination that illumines his solos….” \n \nListen to these stories that illuminate Django the man: \n \nHe was terrified of ghosts. He could not stop himself from gambling. He\nadored movies, particularly American gangster films, and from them\ndeveloped a fondness for wide-brimmed hats that he liked to perch askew\non his head and tuck over one eye. He was amazingly adept at games,\nfrom pinball to pool. He had a pet monkey. \n \nAnd then there was the time he met Andrés Segovia. He played for\nthe\nSpanish classical maestro a short jazz crepuscule on his Selmer guitar.\nWhen Django finished, Segovia was dazzled by the piece and asked for a\ntranscription. Django laughed and shrugged, saying that it was merely\nan improvisation. \n \nAnd there was Django’s pride, illustrated by the story of how the Hot\nClub quartet became a quintet. Grappelli told the tale: “I could see\nsomething was worrying Django. And when I asked him what the trouble\nwas one day, he replied: ‘It doesn’t matter all that much. It’s just\nthat when you’re playing, Stéphane, you’ve got both [QHCF\nguitarist\nRoger] Chaput and me backing you, but when I’m soloing I’ve only got\none guitar behind me!'” With that, Django’s brother Joseph was hired as\na second rhythm guitarist. \n \nAnd there was Django’s sense of style. Grappelli: “I shall never forget\nthe first day Django put on evening dress-with bright red socks. It\ntook some time to explain, without injuring his feelings, that red\nsocks were not the right thing. Django insisted that he liked it that\nway, because red looked so well with black.” \n \nAnd finally there was his innocence, a Gypsy out of step with the\nmodern world. Again, Grappelli told the story, telling of how the Hot\nClub was invited to dine with the king of Belgium during a Belgian\ntour. Django, not knowing better, ate his lettuce with his fingers-but,\nas Grappelli remembered, he somehow did it with great style and class\nso it seemed alright. \n \n \nThe New Beginning<\/b> \nWorld War II split the cornerstones of the QHCF: Django stayed in\nFrance while Grappelli was in England. Freed from the confines of the\nQHCF, Django could explore other venues and band arrangements, setting\nthe stage for a second era of Django’s music as he broadened his\nvocabulary of styles. \n \nDjango replaced Grappelli and his violin with the clarinet of Hubert\nRostaing, creating a band sound no doubt influenced by recordings of\nBenny Goodman and Charlie Christian. Django also played with Fud\nCandrix’s big band. After the war in 1946, Django regrouped with\nGrappelli for a short time before setting sail to tour the United\nStates with Duke Ellington and his orchestra. \n \nDuring the 1940s, Django experimented with going electric. Devoted to\nhis acoustic Selmer guitar but having trouble cutting through the sound\nof the larger bands he was playing in, he affixed a magnetic\nFrench-made Stimer pickup to the petite bouche soundhole. The sound\ncreated a new dimension in his playing, which is infused with bebop he\nheard in America. \n \n \nThe Coda<\/b> \n<img\nsrc=\"http:\/\/www.brainclick.net\/images\/articles\/20050906185939537_5.jpg\"\nalt=\"\" align=\"left\" height=\"251\" width=\"275\">At\nthe dawn of the 1950s, Django moved his small family-including his\nsecond wife Sophie “Naguine” Ziegler and their son Babik-from Paris to\nthe town of Samois-sur-Seine, just south of the capital. “I think he\nended up living in Samois because it was a retreat for him where he\ncould relax and rethink his music,” Babik recalled. “He was very\ninspired at the time and listened to everything from Beethoven to\nbebop\ufffdespecially bebop.” \n \nDjango was in semi-retirement, playing now and then, but spending more\ntime fishing. On May 15, 1953, he was struck by a fatal stroke. He was\nbut forty-three years old. \n \nDjango Reinhardt lived a long life in his forty-three years. It’s\nimpossible to sum up his influence on jazz as that influence continues\nto this day. Matelo Ferret’s sons Boulou and Elios Ferré still\ncarry\nDjango’s torch to the extremes of musical creativity, and Gypsy jazz is\ncurrently in a renaissance with Hot Club bands in Japan, Norway,\nSardinia, San Francisco, and almost anywhere else that jazz is heard. \n \nPerhaps it’s best for Django’s old cohort, Stéphane Grappelli,\nto have\nthe final word. He summed up Django’s playing in the 1954 Melody Maker\ninterview: “He did more for the guitar than any other man in jazz. His\nway of playing was unlike anyone else’s, and jazz is different because\nof him. There can be many other fine guitarists, but never can there be\nanother Reinhardt. I am sure of that.”\n<\/body>\n<\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Django By Michael Dregni A favorite photograph of Django Reinhardt pictures him standing alongside Stéphane Grappelli, the duo looking suave and sophisticated in white tuxedos. The photograph is steeped in the aura of 1930s Paris, where the Quintette du Hot Club de France was formed: charming, cool, classy. Grappelli-Django’s musical partner and foil, rival and […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-site-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.djangobooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}