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| Django, third from right, with his family |
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| Django playing violin for his son | |
Mission Statement: to do very little, for very few, for not very long. Disappointing the easily pleased since 1819. Not as good as it used to be from Day One. History is Bunk - PT Barnum. Artificially Intelligent before it was fashionable. Fat camp for the mind! Nothing lasts, but nothing is lost. The Shock of the Old! Often bettered, never imitated.
Very cool! Too bad there are no recordings of him on violin, as far as I know.
ReplyDelete-notBob
Thanx for proving me wrong. Sounds a lot like Grappelly.
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ReplyDeleteGreat photo! Violin was actually Django's first instrument. Here's a link to a recording on which he performs on both violin and guitar (and also has a piano in it, somewhat of an oddity for Django). https://robertjandukarm.com/2018/02/08/django-reinhardt-plays-violin-and-guitar/
ReplyDeleteAin't this swell? Thank you, Mr. Mac. Back in the early 'nineties, I had a CD given away with a French jazz magazine (that's a magazine about jazz music ...) with uber-rare Django cuts, including the earliest known recording of him (I remember as an eleven year-old child, but this seems unlikely) playing banjo and/or violin. There must be a digital copy somewhere ...
DeleteOff to see if I can find something..........
DeleteAmazing - you can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant and on the internet!
Delete-notBob
BTW - that's my great, great uncle Dimwiddle on the far right of the family photo. Is this the missing Django album? https://www.discogs.com/release/3617521-Django-Reinhardt-Chefs-d%C5%93uvre-Insolites?srsltid=AfmBOorAKjDer3oXZMou69xD_7PtgRI9CY4VvF3I8kgLyjdHfvsx6QNO
ReplyDeleteThat has to be it - I misremembered the banjo as being him though! Ah well ...
Delete... and I was only a decade out with the date.
DeleteIn all seriousness, being only a decade off is not bad. Typically, I misjudge by 25 years or more.
DeleteTo return to Paris during the war as a Romany to continue playing during Nazi occupation shows a strength of character & bravery that makes you love his music all the more.
ReplyDeleteThere's Django, and there's everyone else. The photo of him as "an old man", fourth down, has so much power and wisdom and love. Every note he played was beautiful.
DeleteHere's Michael Dregni's brilliant "Django Reinhardt - The Life And Music Of A Gypsy Legend" - not only a definitive biography but a great, great book that brings to vivid life an almost incredible story.
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/vEGeyxF2nAF
A. Reviewer writes: "a definitive portrait of this great guitarist. Handsome, charismatic, childlike, and unpredictable, Reinhardt was a character out of a picaresque novel. Born in a gypsy caravan at a crossroads in Belgium, he was almost killed in a freak fire that burned half of his body and left his left hand twisted into a claw. But with this maimed left hand flying over the frets and his right hand plucking at dizzying speed, Django became Europe's most famous jazz musician, commanding exorbitant fees--and spending the money as fast as he made it. Dregni not only chronicles this remarkably colorful life--including a fascinating account of gypsy culture--but he also sheds much light on Django's musicianship. He examines his long musical partnership with violinist Stéphane Grappelli--the one suave and smooth, the other sharper and more dissonant--and he traces the evolution of their novel string jazz ensemble, Quintette du Hot Club de France. Indeed, the author spotlights Django's amazing musical diversity, describing his swing-styled Nouveau Quintette, his big band Django's Music, and his later bebop ensemble, as well as his many compositions, including symphonic pieces influenced by Ravel and Debussy and his unfinished organ mass inspired by Bach. And along the way, the author offers vivid snapshots of the jazz scene in Paris--colorful portraits of Josephine Baker, Bricktop, Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, and countless others--and of Django's vagabond wanderings around France, Europe, and the United States, where he toured with Duke Ellington.
Capturing the extraordinary life and times of one of the great musicians of the twentieth century, Django is a must-read portrait of a true original."
Unmissable.
I used inter-library loan to read a copy of this, on a previous recommendation from Farq, and I really, really enjoyed it, while learning more about France (and I've read some about the 19th and 20th Centuries there). Worth the time to read, either as a book or on a screen.
DeleteD in California
Arkadia Records, with little fanfare, released a compilation of Django's recordings last year, that does a fantastic job of remastering the audio so that it sounds almost like it was recorded within the last decade instead of 80 plus years ago. https://arkadiarecords.com/product/nuages/
ReplyDeleteThe musician who currently is tearing up the manouche world is a young Frenchman, Fanou Torracinta. He has several albums to his credit, mostly original compositions. Highly recommend his last one. Gypsy Guitar from Corsica, Vol. 2.
thanks all
ReplyDeleteOoh look! A box set, featuring really early musette recordings with a fourteen-year old DR on banjo!
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/K5Mbm22Mu6U
Look up "Musette To Maestro 1928-37" for details.
Supposedly includes recordings made before the fire that severely damaged his hand. Many thanks, Farq!
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