How did you guys discover GJ?

voutoreenie

Nice thread. For me, it was back in the late 90s right after graduating high school when my parents made me go see a swing band that was lead by a fiddle player who they were friends with (who I eventually played with in a band for about 7-8 years) - the group played Minor Swing, which really caught my ear and the band said something like "composed by the legendary Django Reinhardt" after finishing. And I recognized the name from jazz books I used to read but had never listened to his music...and after talking with my Dad about it, we found out he actually purchased some Django 78s off of eBay (he used to buy a ton of random 78s in the late 90s/early 2000s, just because they were so cheap).

Anyway, that lead to listening to the original HCQ recording of Minor Swing and I was blown away. And then after hearing Daphne I was hooked. Fast forward a few years later and I joined a swing band with the fiddle player but we did a mashup of Django, Bob Wills, Slim & Slam, King Cole trio, etc. or anything that had 4 to the bar comping, really. That's where I learned how to comp with Freddie Green chords, which is quite distinct from la pompe but ultimately more similar than dissimilar in terms of the rhythm. Finally, fast forward to 2016 and I got my Gitane off of a friend who was selling it on facebook...bought the axe, met up with my good friend and excellent player Scott Hlavenka to jam...and after seeing my technique, he essentially told me I was playing all wrong for the style and that's when the rest stroke journey into this madness started lol

And yeah, 10 years later I'm finally feeling comfortable with it lmao

lucky

When I started learning the guitar as a teenager I had a book called The Guitar Handbook by Ralph Denyer which opened with a section on significant guitarists with a page devoted to each one - the first or second one was about Django. I still have it. I managed to get a couple of tapes and saw Grappelli live a couple of years later at my university (I wish I could go back in time knowing what I know now and see that concert again, I would appreciate it on a whole different level) but Django was very much a peripheral figure for me as I was into blues and playing in crappy indie bands. I started getting in to jazz in the early 2000s but again Django was very much in the background, someone I was aware of but didn't really connect with. Around this time I saw Sweet and Lowdown (surprised this hasn't been mentioned before on this thread because I know a lot of players were inspired by it) and that didn't take me to Django particularly, but I did get very curious about the guitar.

Like @adrian seeing Alfonso Ponticelli at the Green Mill in Chicago was a pivotal moment - it was the first time I realised that Django's music was a living music. I researched it a bit and found there was a jam local to me, but didn't go and didn't really do anything about it. In 2010 I was 40 and decided to buy a guitar to celebrate, I ended up buying a Telecaster but I spent sometime with a Dell Arte Pigalle also in the shop and that returned me to my curiosity about the music. About a year later I had a bad fall, broke several ribs, and was off work for 2 months, so I bought a Cigano from my local guitar shop and started going to the local jam - and haven't looked back since.

Looking back, I was lucky to see Grappelli live, lucky to be able to walk into any of my local guitar shops and buy a Selmer style guitar in person - the world has changed a bit since then!

littlemark

In 2000 one of my highschool teachers introduced me to the music of Django. (And sweet and lowdown) He knew I was learning guitar. I was a punk kid but was just eager to absorb various music influences. I played guitar first, but as the story goes, so did my friend and we wanted to start a band. He was better at the guitar so I bought an electric bass.

Ultimately, I studied classical bass at university and just listened to Django. I could play minor swing terribly but I didn't consider myself a guitar player.

In 2010 I bought a gitane d hole for $500 CAD off eBay. I wanted to play rhythm in a gypsy band, but I couldn't find anyone around me. So I sold it for the same money two years later.

About 9 years ago I needed a change from the bass and became serious about guitar. At first mostly doing Charlie Christian and trad jazz stuff but always thinking about Django. I had met someone off Kijiji who was also into CC stuff. Last year we finally got a band going. (Thanks buddy)

I'd still like to play rhythm, but someone in the band has to play the melody. 😂

Scoredog

I would read about this guy Django in Guitar Player magazine in the 70's and then heard some recordings of Django in 79 while attending GIT (Guitar Institute in LA). The Django stuff made very little impression on this 19yr old as my focus was fusion and the current LA sound (a part what is known now as Yacht Rock). Django recordings just sounded too primitive to me compared to what was coming out of the LA studios. Fast forward to about 2004, I was hearing this pseudo Gypsy Jazz music being played for health plans, restaurants and hardware stores and thought "I can write and play that" and was and still am working for Warner Chapel in Nashville (then called 615 music). I Went hunting for modern recordings of Gypsy Jazz and found Jorgenson's Franco America Swing and used it as part of my template for my composing this project. John's record sounded great but I still didn't totally catch the bug till a few years later when WC asked me to do a 2nd GJ project as the first one was successful. I went, ok I'm going in and I'm going to learn this in 3 months. A totally ridiculous estimate in hindsight but I figured since I figure out most music styles when composing and had hit records in contemporary jazz I would be able to do it. I found a video on YT of Gonzalo Adrian and Benoit at DIJ and was hooked. The project though was not great because I was trying to pull things off I was not really ready to do where on my first project I played to my limitations. Anyway I was hooked and continue to get better with effort (I still believe I'll get where I want to be in 3 months).

As an epilogue, I have been playing electric guitar again (not exclusively) and fuse my Django stuff when playing electric. I am a better guitarist than I ever thought I would be and I can thank Gypsy Jazz music and the community here and the people I meet at festivals for that.

voutoreenie

@lucky you indeed are so lucky to have seen Grappelli in the 90s...and I'm super jealous!! Was it with the same trio lineup he toured in the 90s with that included Bucky Pizzarelli on guitar and John Burr on bass?? This lineup: https://www.jazzmessengers.com/en/68611/stephane-grappelli/live-at-the-blue-note-cut-out

Should add it's an absolutely fantastic album and it contains what might be one of the most incredible performances of Night & Day ever recorded, certainly to my ears (the 3 primaries take a soli together that's just beautiful). Also, a much younger John Pizzarrelli makes a few guest appearances as well and rips a killer solo on Lady Be Good. Either way, highly recommend that album to any "swing at large" fans - it isn't particularly "Djangoy" without any Selmer guitar tones but Grappelli's in absolutely amazing form for his age (there's other recordings from the same tour that aren't as good) and if anyone's interested in hearing a master at Freddie Green comping in Bucky Pizzarrelli, he's on fine form as well!

Tangentially related, I once dated a violist who was a string orchestra teacher and the Grappelli album came on one time when we were listening to music on random...anyway, she goes "wow, this is some lovely music -- do you know if there's any sheet music available for the violinists parts?" (I used to sell sheet music for a living in another lifetime) - when I told her Grappelli was improvising all of it aside from the melody and in his 90s to be boot, her flabbers were gasted and tbh I'm not sure if they ever recovered...as a classical purist, she just couldn't conceive of a string player improvising like that lmao

pdg

I saw Grappelli twice -- once at UCLA in about 1978, and the second time at some old theater in L.A. (maybe in the mid '80s?). The latter time there was hardly anyone there, but I remember that there were classical violin students in the audience.

bbwood_98

Great thread!

I'll chime in as one of the early adopters in the USA (so I'm told lol). Lucky to grow up with parents interested in music- and they new some folks in the area - So listened to jazz, and mostly big band Freddie Green styles as well as other styles of jazz. I was playing (very badly!) a little big band as well as punk and klezmer in high school. Eventually figured out I wanted to study music more seriously (ie. at university). I was lucky at university to have access to a great teacher and on of the first assignments for lessons in jazz was a historical study of jazz guitar . . . Django comes up early, and I thought ok whatever. Then I'm in the local coffee house watching the great @scot wise and the hot club of North Carolina play . . I was super hooked, and went to every gig I could for 4 years - and sat in once or twice too . . . again very badly! Finished the degree requirements and spend a few years playing very out jazz (with some greats . . . Zorn, Tim Berne, Daniel Carter, Eugene Chadborne and others) while dreaming about how to play like the guy who played with Bireli . . . (gypsy project had just come out and the music somehow felt alive) I moved back to Dc to try some other things in life.

Seeing the Django Festival at Birdland in 2000 and 2001 where important - just seeing Angelo and Sampson and Dorado and Babik live was amazing. In 2002 I moved to NYC and saw the great Stephane Wrembel, eventually taking several years of lessons and playing rhythm with him at for some years at various gigs. in 2004 (oh, like @Jangle_Jamie lol!) I went to the Django Reinhardt Jazz Fest in Samois on my honeymoon (hey - what can I say; my wife is not only tolerant but a musician too . . ) the two biggest influences were seeing a jam with Samson and Alexandre Cavaliere, Ritary (and a bucket load of other players) and Adrien, Mathieu and Sebastien play. I went back the next year to absorb more. They played with respect the old style, but with the freedom of modern jazz players. 20 some years later thousands of gigs with everyone who will hire me!! , I am still totally smitten with playing rhythm in this style.

The community is one thing the keeps me involved - so many great people and players. I'm lucky to have had a lot of opportunity to play with great musicians in both this style and others over the years.

Mitu

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/122882#Comment_122882

Oh my god hello Adrian!!! I saw that video you did with... Paul Davids? you really helped me master my rhythm strumming!!! :D

lorenzop

I had heard of Django but didn’t know it was an actual extensive genre until I went to a Midwest Gypsy Jazz festival a few years ago.

Bought a Manouche guitar and got started. My favorite mistake.

marcelodamon

For me it started in 1992. I had already been playing guitar since 1985 (I started guitar at age 7), and a friend of mine, a budding saxophonist, wanted me to get into jazz so he would have someone to play chords for him. His parents were both doctors and he an an enormous CD collection. He gave me CDs of all the jazz guitarists in his collection. As such, I had CDs from Joe Pass, Tal Farlow, Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery, and of course, Django. I remember putting the CD in, which was the "Verve Jazz Masters" volume 38, and from the first few seconds of Nuages, to the last track, Night and Day, I was transfixed, and I have never been the same since!

I sought out anyone near the Chicago area who played this style (being originally from the region). I was lucky to meet Alphonse Ponticelli, and he gave me some pointers on the style, as he himself had been at it a few years himself. Additionally, a couple of years later, the Rosenberg Trio came out with what I consider one of the best gypsy jazz albums of all time, "Caravan". I was blown away, and took to transcribing every song, every note Stochelo played on that album. It took me quite a while, as you can imagine, and in the interim, I continued to listen and study, as well as transcribe Django, and the many other artists faithfully playing this music. Additionally, around that time, I discovered Fapy Lafertin, Moreno, Angelo Debarre, as well as the two brothers whom I consider giants in their own right: Pierre "Baro", and Jean Pierre "Matelo" Ferret.

Anyway, that' s mon histoire. As they say in this style: "The first 30 years are the worst". I am glad that I passed that milestone!