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Craig
patrus
http://www.youtube.com/patrus53/
(Sorry for the length)
There is something called The Hero Myth, and like all myths it never changes. It goes like this: from out of obscurity the wild child escapes an early fate to be raised freely among nature. During this time early signs of unmistakable talent manifest, a portent of things to come. From there the child matures when he is faced with an overwhelming occurrence that changes his life completely and from which he rises from the ashes, if you will, to emerge out of whole cloth where he becomes our HERO.. If this sounds familiar that is because it forms the framework of so many so-called biographies, and the need to fill in spaces we have no way of knowing about. From the Pharaoh myths and those of pre-historic Gods to Gilgamesh and Odysseus, Jesus, Moses; to Leonardo, Michelangelo and Cimabue, to Einstein and Newton, to Superman, Spiderman and every comic book hero, to Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, and lastly Django Reinhardt, it has been going on for 5000+ years.
This template, as early publicists understood never applied to anyone more than Django, who after all, LITERALLY emerged from the ashes. And what was his terrible tragedy? The caravan fire, of course. Out here in the real world we know that nothing ever came to anyone without a great deal of work and tradition supporting them – even Newton, who invented the Calculus for crying out loud couldn’t have done it by himself, and the hardest working man in show business was none other than Michelangelo who even burnt drawings to keep the myth going. But what they do profit by is that when the figure emerges on a historical cusp we always assign the sum total of what we don’t know prior to them to their achievement.
And so with Django, who from his hospital bed and the mass of goop he had to make a hand out of, with only his brother to help we should suppose not only revived himself but in about 18 short months created the entire historical fingering technique (or "style" to quote here) on his own. This is most recently carried forward by the Django’s Hand article of recent interest, where the use of arps and open strings is ascribed to Django. (Elsewhere it evens assigns the ‘chromatic gliss’ to Django as evidence of his mastery, whereas once you know the ‘trick’ it is not hard at all, and in fact I’ve taught people to do it who can’t even play guitar). Now no one credits Django with having invented the downstoke picking technique since we know it has been used on instruments since early antiquity, but you’d think that from some people’s view no one had ever even seen a guitar before Django among the Gypsy people, instead of what was certain an ongoing hybridization for a millennium and was already hybridized with Flamenco. Interestingly enough the one Waltz we find from Django as evidence of music he must have played before the fire is laid out perfectly in the familiar economical fingering patterns that Segovia pledged to steal back classical from before he had even heard of our guy. So much for Django inventing 'the style', unless you think he was the only person capable of coming up with the easiest, most efficient way to play all these tunes since there is nothing altered for the handicapped in the sense of being especially idiosyncratic about them when you really look at them.
So if we take a sober look at the actual man, I really don’t think that it is such a stretch (certainly not worth the time I’m putting in here, even with intended pun) to recognize that Django sitting in bed was not inventing a tie-in to the new Jazz era out of nothing, which he had not heard until a bit later, but trying to catch up to the fingering technique that he understood as his birthright. Did his deformity INFORM his approach as it was applied to Jazz? Of course, just like Durer’s drifting eye made him a great woodcut artist and El Geco’s astigmatism gave birth to elongated figures as spiritual metaphors. But to say that his technique, as he developed early on was totally because of and not in spite of his amazing deformity, let alone his 'invention' is either ignorant of history and the creative process, or just wishful thinking at its best.
Which leaves plenty of room for the remote possibility of people like Fapy, Matelo, Baro, Debarre and Bireli (and even ourselves) to go in different directions, or even to do things Django didn’t, even couldn’t, unless you think Django could play like Bireli, he just didn’t feel like it. The big difference is playing with heart, and that is the thing that Fapy understands like few do, the reason which (once Star Eyes came out) the best players shook their heads and swore Fapy was channeling Django for the lack of better words to describe what he could do. Go with Jimmy and the others in peace, I’m sticking with Fapy and his school.
So the moral is play this music if you love it, not because you wish you were DR or anyone else because you’ll only end up a crappy version of them and selling your guitar anyway.
Here’s a Gypsy joke for y’all:
Q: What did Django’s monkey’s farts smell like?
A: Why, BANANAS!
And maybe a fried chicken every once in a while.
"The dogs bark but the caravan moves on..."
Its a great theory, but not one I feel we can include Django Reinhardt in. Obviously everything is subjective, and for me subjectlvely the greatest guitar performance I have ever seen is Bireli's 'Hungaria's-see below..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xwmpuvj8dSw
..and for me Bireli really is the closest thing you can get to the a walking talking Django. That said Reinhardt's phrasing, tone, compositions and aura (and lets not kid ourselves, this is a huge element)
for me make him the greatest guitarist (in this style and most others) of all time. However, its all about opinion and thats what makes this sort of argument kind of defunct. I'm not going to change anybodies opinion but its fun to try!
That's why I included my Django monkey joke, it is the only thing we can be sure of, although Ted Dupont might disagree.
Regards,
E
"On dit que Django joue style gitan.Django ne joue pas style gitan.Il joue un style qui luis est propre.La musique de Django commence avec lui-meme.Il joue certes de la guitare,instrument traditionnel,mais il a fait lui meme son ecole tsigane de guitare.Il a cree un STYLE.Cette ecole part de lui".
"Django did not play in the gypsy style. He played a style that was his alone, that began with him. Certainly, he played the guitar, a traditional gypsy instrument, but his school of guitar playing was his own creation".Matelo Ferret (c.1959)
Uh...he played this thing, Gypsy Jazz, didn't he? (the converse was in the professional Jazz world of the time it was also known as 'third chair from the left...'). Not to diminish Django in any way, mind you, I agree with the above. Django brought a time-laden approach, found his own way in and married it to Jazz, which in that context I heartily agree. I don't accept that his deformity created the world's first use of inverted triads, that he wouldn't have been the same musician without his deformity. Jimi Hendrix played the same way as Django throughout his career if you notice - 2 fingers held more parallel than normal to the neck, thumb over chords, scales running up and down one string, etc, yet no comparable attention has been given since it is considered merely a product of being self-taught. I'd probably say his school of playing was his own creation also, because he was also a stylist bringing a new means of expression. But there is a tendency to emphasize most what we most know while in reality it looks like only a small fraction of Django's genius has ever made it across time, this man who could sit and seemingly spin endless melodic lines of music straight out of his imagination like Bach or Mozart. That's where I look to for Django without the mythology, Fapy too, like an open spigot or something.
Not to lose the distinction between self-expression and creativity either...didn't Hendrix play 'All Along The Watch Tower' better than Dylan himself, not to mention all the Dylan tunes the Byrds ever covered?? And how about Prince's prancing version of 'Spanish Castle Magic'?
Just kidding, wanted to see if you were still paying attention.... :P I'm not sure I am at this point...