Jean Baptiste Reinhardt, who was born in a gypsy caravan in 1910, became one of the most significant and original guitarists in jazz history. Although born in Belgium he lived most of his life in France, where he was known by his stage name, Django Reinhardt.
In Paris in the 1930's, Django was the first european musician to arouse the interest of american musicians in the european jazz scene. He achieved this through his creative and original musical ability, immortalised in the 854 recordings he managed to produce between 1928-1953. With his virtuosity and unorthodox 2-fingered playing technique, Django was, together with Charlie Christian, one of the pioneers of modern jazz guitar. He also contributed to the consolidation of the jazz guitar as a solo instrument, in contrast to itís conventional role in the rythm section of the old jazz bands.
In his career Django played
and recorded with many prominent, ground breaking musicians such as Duke Ellington,
Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins and Eddie South. In contrast to other jazz
pioneers, Django was European and, first and foremost, a gypsy, which played
a major role in both his musical development and his lifestyle. His most famous
musical partnership was with the french violinist Stéphane
Grappelli in their swing band "Quintette du Hot Club de France" consisting
entirely of string instruments, an arrangement that spawned the musical genre
"gypsy jazz" or "jazz manouche".
The Musician.
Django was on a musical journey throughout his life, starting with musette and light music, he moved through hot swing jazz to intense be-bop. Broadly speaking one can divide his career into 4 periods:-
1) 1918-30 Musette and
light music
2) 1930-40 Dance and hot jazz in the original quintette
3) 1940-47 Swing with a new quintette and various big bands
4) 1947-53 Modern swing and be-bop
Django enthusiasts differ greatly in their opinion as to which period was the best. The two first are especially interesting as it is here that gypsy jazz was created. Of course many of the guitar techniques that Django introduced, for example the chromatic glissando, note bending, octaves, trills and sweeps, were old techniques that had developed through the centuries within classical, flamenco and folk music. However, Django's implementation of these techniques into improvised jazz solos was completely new. It is also in these two periods where Django's gypsy roots are most in evidence which is why this is usually considered to be Django's "golden age".
In the third period starting around 1940, the popularity of swing music was established, and we see a new side of Django. It was his role as composer, big band arranger and solo virtuoso that showed the breadth of his musical understanding way beyond the jazz framework. In this period Django's style became more sophisticated, and much of the time he seemed more interested in composing and conducting than in playing the guitar. Despite the difficulties presented by the 2nd world war there are many fine big band recordings, especially from Belgium, where one can here Django playing his own compositions and arrangements.
In the last part of his musical journey, Django moved away from the gypsy genre and over to be-bop, which he encountered on his USA tour in late 1946. He arrived in the states as "the king of swing-guitar", but he found that jazz had developed a great deal in comparison to war-torn Europe. In the small New York clubs, swing was slowly giving way to the new style of be-bop and Django began to see himself as a representative of a past era. This was hard for Django to take, having always been at the forefront of the european jazz scene, and he reacted by becoming increasingly reclusive, spending more time painting than playing the guitar. In his last years from 1951-53 he once again transformed his style and re-incarnated himself as a be-bop guitarist. He put a Stimmer pick-up on his old macaferri, dropping the electric guitar which heíd been using since the USA tour and he began to tour with a new generation of jazz musicians. Sadly, Django died in 1953 aged only 43, so he was never able to enjoy his second youth, but in the be-bop recordings which he made, one can hear that he fully succeeded in making the transition.
If youíd like to listen to Djangoís music in chronological order as opposed to the rather random compilations that one normally finds, then there are a couple of good series:
1) The french publisher
and record company Frémaux & Associés started a chronological
series in 1996 called "Intégrale Django Reinhardt" which contains
everything that Django recorded, including radio and pirate sessions. So far
the series has reached 1947 and consists of 14 double CDís with a booklet
full of historical details. This set can be bought at specialist music shops
or ordered from one of the many CD web sites.
2) Djangology series 1-10 from EMI/Pathe Marconi covers the whole period of
Django's career but a lot of material is edited out.
On the web site "Django
Reinhardt Documentation Center" you can find a complete discography
of all Django's recordings. This site also has lots of articles, links and other
information about Django and Gypsy Jazz generally. Another useful web-site is
the Django Swing Page.
The myths and anecdotes about the great creative artists are often difficult to separate from the truth. This rule also applies in the jazz world and what we know about Django is a remarkable blend of fact and fiction. So far there are 5 biographies of Django of which the best known is "Django Reinhardt" by Charles Delauney, Django's manager and friend. The book follows his life from beginning to end and there are many anecdotes and quotes more or less in chronological order. Although there is a tendancy to over romanticise the myth of the natural, unspoilt gypsy genius, íthe noble savageí, the majority of the tales in the book have some basis in the actual events, therefore giving a good introduction to Django the man.
Django is basically portrayed
as a rather childish natural genius who loved to play the guitar, billiards
and poker, he never worried about money or tomorrows problems. Django held onto
his gypsy values, despite his high status as a world famous musician. This presented
some difficulties in relation to his professional life, he always wanted freedom
to do as he pleased which brought him into conflict with both society and those
who were involved with his musical career.
Maybe the best way to describe his personality is through the many anecdotes
surrounding him and his view of certain aspects of life, such as:
Accomodation and Clothes:
- Django grew up in gypsy caravans and at the age of 20 he had never lived in
a house or had any new clothes.
- He loved the outdoor life on the road with the caravans, sometimes he disappeared
for months. If he was booked to play, those responsible would sometimes employ
a man just to keep an eye on him and transport him to venues.
- The magazine "Jazz hot" wrote in 1937:- "Django Reinhardt was
seen on highway No.7 at kilometre post 489 near Lyon".
- With fame Django began to take his image very seriously, buying the best clothes
and a luxury appartment on the Champs Elysses.
- Everytime he stayed in a hotel he converted the room to a camp site where
he slept on the floor and let the taps run to simulate the outdoor life.
- Wherever he was, his accomodation was always filled with other gypsies ready
to party all night, much to the annoyance of the neighbours.
Reading and writing:
- Django was unable to read or write, he attended school for one day.
- As he couldnít read the metro signs, he always took a taxi in Paris.
- Grappelli taught him to write his name so that he could have a proper signature
on his contracts instead of a cross.
- He was too proud to admit that he couldnít read, on one occassion,
whilst looking at a contract for a tour of England he pointed at the paper and
said, îIím not keen on this clause hereî. It turned out that
this point was where it was agreed that the arranger would meet all the quintettes
expenses.
Jealousy and Pride:
- Before the quintettes first radio broadcast in 1937, recorded by CBS in Paris
and sent ícoast to coastí in the USA, the studio host made the
mistake of introducing the quintette as íStephane Grappelli and his hot
fourí. Django was furious and got up with the intention of leaving the
studio, only after major apologies and a guarentee that the error would be corrected
later in the broadcast, could Django be persuaded to return. Even so, Django
didnít speak to Grappelli or the rest of the quintette for weeks.
Money:
- Django was a passionate gambler and could often be found in the nearest casino.
Money meant little to him even though he was one of the highest paid jazz musicians
in Europe. Drummer Pierre Fouad recalls seeing Django lose between 300,000 and
500,000 francs at poker. Another time, when the quintette were playing in Nice
he was proud that he had won 345,000 Francs in the casino. He neglected however
to mention that he then lost 365,000 the next day.
- When he was to tour with Duke Ellington he demanded the same payment that
Errol Flynn had received for his last film.
- Django always drove in
large american cars, although he never had a driving license. After one tour
of England he bought a big Buick and hired an english chauffour who came with
him to France. The driver soon quit after spending many nights on a gypsy camp
site where there was a vendetta between two rival clans.
- Django was very superstitious and felt unsafe in the dark. When the quintette
were on tour he refused to either fly or sail.
- He never carried his guitar or changed strings, these tasks were performed
by his younger brother, Joseph Reinhardt.
- When Paris was being bombed he always sent his wife out to check if it was
safe to leave the shelter.
USA, the home of Jazz:
- He loved everything from
the states, especially jazz and gangster films where they had thick rolls of
dollars in their pockets.
- When he arrived in the USA heíd not taken a guitar with him, as he
figured that his star status would be sufficient to get all the american guitar
manufacturers lining up for the privelege of giving him a guitar.
- He was very proud of an american journal that had him on the front page with
bigger letters than President Roosevelt. He said, "Americans you see, they
know what I'm worth, I am more popular than their president".
- Django was self taught,
he never read music and learnt to play as a street musician in Paris.
- The accordian player Jean Vissade, with whom Django made his first recordings
as an accompanist, said of Django, I've found him almost too good, we were worried
he would steal the limelight from us".
- He once played for the great classical guitarist Andres Segovia who asked
him where he could get hold of the score for the music. Django replied, laughing,
that he had just improvised the whole thing.
- At a jam in the nightclub "Chez Florence", Django, Coleman Hawkins,
Benny Carter and Bill Coleman had a competition to see who could play "í
won't dance" in the most keys. One by one they left the stage to leave
Django to soak up the applause.
- Django played a whole season at St John de Luz with only 4 strings and a tooth
from a comb as a plectrum. He'd been out on the road for many weeks and hadn't
managed to buy the special steel strings he needed for his Maccaferri guitar.
- In a review in the journal "Jazz Hot" of a concert with Django and
Dizzy Gillespie in 1953 Jean-Louis Scali writes:"Right at the start Django
broke a string, but that just made us wonder what he needed it for, his solo
just got better and better".
A quote from Alex Combelle who played with Django in the thirties: "What was unusual about Django was that he couldn't play out of tune or stumble in any way. Music came naturally to him. The right notes and the right chords seemed to fall beneath his fingers in a perfectly natural way".