Django Reinhardt

Here's a review I wrote elsewhere about an album called Django Reinhardt in Brussels

THE name Django Reinhardt has passed into pop culture. It’s a name most of us would be familiar with long before we ever comes across the marvellous music of this fiery genius.  

Everything about Django (pic) seems like a legend. From his birth as Jean-Baptiste Reinhardt to a gypsy family in Belgium in 1910 to his losing two fingers in a fire in 1928 (which prompted him to switch from the violin to the guitar, and creating a unique style in the process) to his meeting with violinist Stephane Grapelli at the Hot Club in Paris in 1934, and his early death in 1953, Django cuts an unforgettable figure.  

Django’s relationship (both musical and personal) with the cool Grapelli may have pushed him to his greatest musical achievements, but my favourite Reinhardt recording isn’t one of his more acclaimed works. I’m fond of Django Reinhardt in Brussels, because of the circumstances under which this extraordinary record was made.

The late 1930s saw the Reinhardt/Grapelli quintet at the height of its powers and Django was famous throughout Europe. But the lightning invasion of first Belgium and then France in mid-1940 meant that he was stranded in Nazi-occupied territory.  

Now, the Nazis’ hatred and persecution of the Jewish people is well-known. But their determination to wipe out gypsies is not quite as well-documented. (Incidentally, the Nazis also disapproved of jazz as a form of music made by black men!) As the world’s most famous gypsy, and a jazzer to boot, Django had to lie low during World War II.  

Amidst all this, he still found time to record, and that’s just one of the things that makes the Brussels albums so poignant. Under the nose of the occupier, Django snuck in a number of sessions with relatively unknown sidemen. The April 1942 session featured the backing band of Belgian bandleader Fud Candrix, whose pianist Ivon de Bie had a prominent role in this recording.

Besides the memorable Django original Place De Brouckere, a tribute to Brussels itself, the recordings were also notable because on Vous Et Moi and Blues En Mineur, Django played violin instead of guitar – the only time his violin playing was ever captured on record.

The May 1942 session, which makes up the second half of this fascinating record, saw Django backed by the Stan Benders Orchestra. Quite how one sneaks in a jazz orchestra under the watchful Nazi guards has always escaped me.  

But once again, there is a magical quality about these recordings that extends beyond the pure quality of the music that Django cut. Apart from revisiting two of his most acclaimed compositions in Nuages and Djangology, he re-worked Cole Porter’s wartime hit, Begin the Beguine, into the thinly disguised Divine Beguine.

These Brussels recordings aren’t the only ones this veritable rogue managed to make during the war. Even if only for the violin moments, they have to rank among the most important the man ever cut. After the war there was a celebrated but brief reunion with Grapelli in London, before the ever-unpredictable Django drifted off to do his own thing. In 1953, he succumbed to a stroke. 

Django died just as LPs were coming in, so you'll have to check out compilations of largely old 78 rpm recordings transferred to CDs  - so it is probably worth risking the first compilation listed on Amazon, but remember to check out both under Django's name and that of Hot Club De Paris.

Reinhardt is probably the most influential of all guitarists, not only in jazz and gypsy music, but his playing actually modernized the instrument itself , made it accessible for many.

Edited by Sean Trane - September 19 2006 at 03:26

the most amazing thing about Django Reinhardt is that ever since he had been in a fire at age 18 (his caravan burned down, and he only just escaped) he could only use three fingers of his left hand, the thumb, index and middle finger. he developed a special technique that allowed him to play the chords with his thumb and the two other fingers. amazing but true; one would never suspect it when hearing him play

here a picture of him, where you can clearly see he does not use the ring- and little finger of his left hand for playing:

MikeEnRegalia wrote: oliverstoned wrote: I'm not a big fan, much virtuosity but few emotion. Out of pure curiosity: Which Jazz artists - in your opinion - successfully combine virtuosity on Reinhardt's level with emotion?

oliverstoned wrote: I'm not a big fan, much virtuosity but few emotion.

reality wrote: Seriously, than what are you doing on a prog site?

I sincerely hope that comment was at least a little bit facetious.





Edited by SolariS - September 21 2006 at 20:30