Albums: Crazy Rhythm, Django Reinhardt & Stéphane Grappelli, Paris & London: D Paris 1939 -1940

Django Reinhardt (Jean-Baptiste Reinhardt, Liberchies, Belgium, January 23, 1910 - Fontainebleau, France, May, 16, 1953) was a Gypsy jazz guitarist. He was the first hugely influential jazz figure to emerge from Europe and he remains the most influential European to this day, with possible competition from Joe Zawinul, George Shearing, John McLaughlin, his old cohort Stéphane Grappelli and a bare handful of others. Reinhardt's Gypsy nickname "Django" was Romani for "I awake." He spent most of his youth in gypsy encampments close to Paris, playing banjo, guitar and violin from an early age, and professionally at Bal-musette halls in Paris.

He started first on the violin and eventually moved on to a banjo-guitar that had been given to him and his first known recordings (in 1928) were of him playing the banjo. At the age of 18, Reinhardt was injured in a fire that ravaged the caravan he shared with Florine "Bella" Mayer, his first wife.They were very poor, and to supplement their income Bella made imitation flowers out of celluloid and paper. Consequently, their home was full of this highly flammable material.

Returning from a performance late one night, Django apparently knocked over a candle on his way to bed. While his family and neighbors were quick to pull him to safety, he received first- and second-degree burns over half his body. His right leg was paralyzed and the third and fourth fingers of his left hand were badly burnt.

Doctors believed that he would never play guitar again and intended to amputate one of his legs. Reinhardt refused to have the surgery and left the hospital after a short time; he was able to walk within a year with the aid of a cane. His brother Joseph Reinhardt, an accomplished guitarist himself, bought Django a new guitar.

With painful rehabilitation and practice Django relearned his craft in a completely new way, even as his third and fourth fingers remained partially paralyzed. Hence, he played all of his guitar solos with only two fingers, and managed to use the two injured digits only for chord work. In 1934, Reinhardt and Parisian violinist Stéphane Grappelli formed the "Quintette du Hot Club de France" with Reinhardt's brother Joseph and Roger Chaput on guitar, and Louis Vola on bass.

Occasionally Chaput was replaced by Reinhardt's best friend and fellow Gypsy Pierre "Baro" Ferret. The vocalist Freddy Taylor participated in a few songs, such as "Georgia On My Mind" and "Nagasaki". Jean Sablon was the first singer to record with him more than thirty songs from 1933.

They also used their guitars for percussive sounds, as they had no true percussion section. The Quintet du Hot Club de France was one of the few well-known jazz ensembles composed only of string instruments. Reinhardt composed several winsome, highly original tunes like "Daphne," "Nuages" and "Manoir De Mes Reves," as well as mad swingers like "Minor Swing" and the ode to his record label of the '30s, "Stomping At Decca." As the late Ralph Gleason said about Django's recordings, "They were European and they were French and they were still jazz." According to one story, during his recovery period, Reinhardt was introduced to American jazz when he found a 78 RPM disc of Louis Armstrong's "Dallas Blues" at an Orleans flea market.

He then resumed his career playing in Parisian cafes until one day in 1934 when Hot Club chief Pierre Nourry proposed the idea of an all-string band to Reinhardt and Grappelli. Thus was born the Quintet of the Hot Club of France, which quickly became an international draw thanks to a long, splendid series of Ultraphone, Decca and HMV recordings. In Paris on March 14, 1933 Reinhardt recorded 2 takes each of "Parce que je vous aime" and "Si, j'aime Suzy", vocal numbers with lots of guitar fills and great guitar support, using 3 guitarists along with an accordion lead, violin, and bass.

In August of the following year recordings were also made with more than one guitar (Joseph Reinhardt, Roger Chaput, and Django), including the first recording by the Quintet. In both years, it should be noted, the great majority of recordings featured a wide variety of horns, often in multiples, piano, etc. Reinhardt played and recorded also with many American Jazz legends such as Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Rex Stewart (who later stayed in Paris), and a jam-session and radio performance with jazz legend Louis Armstrong.

Later in his career he gigged with Dizzy Gillespie in France. Reinhardt could neither read nor write music, and was barely literate. Stéphane took the band's downtime to teach him.

The guitars used by Django and the Hot Club of France, the Selmer Maccaferri, are the first commericially available guitars with a cutaway. Another innovation is a steel reinforced neck. Many luthiers consider them to be among the finest guitars ever made.

The outbreak of war in 1939 broke up the Quintette, with Grappelli remaining in London where the group was playing and Reinhardt returning to France. During the war years, he led a big band, another quintet with clarinetist Hubert Rostaing in place of Grappelli, and after the liberation of Paris, recorded with such visiting American jazzmen as Mel Powell, Peanuts Hucko and Ray McKinley. In 1946, Reinhardt took up the electric guitar and toured America as a soloist with the Duke Ellington band but his appearances were poorly received.

Some of his recordings on electric guitar late in his life are bop escapades where his playing sounds frantic and jagged, a world apart from the jubilant swing of old. However, starting in Jan. 1946, Reinhardt and Grappelli held several sporadic reunions where the bop influences are more subtly integrated into the old, still-fizzing swing format.

In the 1950s, Reinhardt became more reclusive, remaining in Europe, playing and recording now and then until his death from a stroke in 1953. Many musicians have expressed admiration for Reinhardt (whose main influence was Eddie Lang), including guitarist Jimmy McCulloch, classical guitarist Julian Bream; country artist Chet Atkins, who placed Reinhardt #1 on a list of the ten most influential guitarists of the 20th century (he placed himself fifth); Latin rocker Carlos Santana; blues legend B.B. King; the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia; Phish's Trey Anastasio; Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi; Jimi Hendrix; The Libertines' Carlos Barat, Synyster Gates; Shawn Lane; Stevie Ray Vaughan; Derek Trucks; Mark Knopfler; Les Paul; Joe Pass; Peter Frampton; Denny Laine; Jeff Beck; Jon Larsen; Steve Howe; Charlie Christian; Barney Kessel; George Benson; Wes Montgomery; Martin Taylor; Tchavolo Schmitt; Stochelo Rosenberg; Biréli Lagrène; John Jorgenson; Michael Angelo Batio; Richard Thompson; Robert Fripp; and Jeff Martin. Willie Nelson wore a Django Reinhardt T-shirt on tour in Europe in 2002, stating in an interview that he admired Django's music and ability.

The British guitarist Diz Disley plays in a style based on Reinhardt's technique and he collaborated on numerous projects with Stéphane Grappelli. Musicians have paid tribute to Reinhardt in many other ways, such as by invoking his name in their own work or personal life. Jimi Hendrix is said to have named one of his bands the Band of Gypsys because of Django's music.

Jazz trio The Lost Fingers from Quebec, Canada named themselves after Reinhardt's injured fingers, and play music that is strongly influenced by his style. A number of musicians named their sons Django in reference to Reinhardt, including David Crosby, former Slade singer Noddy Holder, Jerry Jeff Walker, Richard Durrant, and also actors Nana Visitor & Alexander Siddig and Raphael Sbarge. Jazz musician Django Bates and singer-songwriter Django Haskins were named after him.

Songs written in Reinhardt's honor include "Django," composed by John Lewis, which has become a jazz standard performed by musicians such as Miles Davis. The Modern Jazz Quartet titled one of their albums Django in honor of him. The Allman Brothers Band song Jessica was written by Dickey Betts in tribute to Reinhardt — he wanted to write a song that could be played using only two fingers.

This aspect of the artist's work also motivated Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, who was inspired by Reinhardt to keep playing guitar after a factory accident that cost him two fingertips. Composer Jon Larsen has composed several crossover concerts featuring Django inspired music together with symphonic arrangements, most famous are "White Night Stories" (2002) and "Vertavo" (1996). In 2005, Django Reinhardt ended on the 66th place in the election of The Greatest Belgian (De Grootste Belg) in Flanders and on the 76th place in the Walloon version of the same competition Le plus grand Belge.

George Cole has created a seven piece acoustic band in the style of Django Reinhardt called George Cole and Vive Le Jazz. They perform original music with Gypsy Jazz rhythms. He owns one of Django's Selmer guitars and was featured in "Just Jazz Magazine." He has played at Carnegie Hall, The Fillmore and The Great American Music Hall.

Reinhardt in popular culture Reinhardt has been portrayed in several films, such as in the opening sequence of the 2003 animated film Les Triplettes de Belleville. The third and fourth fingers of the cartoon Reinhardt are considerably smaller than the fingers used to play the guitar. Reinhardt's legacy dominates in Woody Allen's 1999 Sweet and Lowdown.

This spoof biopic focuses on fictional American guitarist Emmet Ray's obsession with Reinhardt, with soundtrack featuring Howard Alden. He is also portrayed by guitarist John Jorgenson in the movie Head in the Clouds. In the classic Italian western Django, the titular hero is presumably named after Reinhardt.

In the climax of the movie, his hands are smashed by his enemies and he is forced to fire a gun with his wounded hands. Reinhardt is also the idol of the character Arvid in the movie Swing Kids, where the character's left hand is smashed by a member of the Hitler Jugend (HJ), but is inspired to continue by Reinhardt's example. Reinhardt's music has been used in the soundtrack of many films, including the oracle scene in The Matrix; Rhythm Futur (95 minute mark) and I Can't Give You Anything But Love (41 minute mark) in The Aviator; Nuages in Gattaca; the score for Louis Malle's 1974 movie, Lacombe Lucien;the background for the Steve Martin movie L.A. Story; the background for a number of Woody Allen movies, including Stardust Memories, where Woody's character plays a Django record; Honeysuckle Rose in the background of the Central Park carriage ride scene in Kate and Leopold; during the Juilliard audition in the movie Daltry Calhoun; Minor Swing and Blues Clair in Metroland for which Mark Knopfler wrote the score; his rendition of Brazil can be heard on the "Something's Gotta Give" soundtrack; and Minor Swing in the scene in the painter's house in the Italian film "I Cento Passi", and as played by Johnny Depp in the river party scene in Lasse Hallström's Chocolat.

Reinhardt's work also figures heavily into B. Monkey and The Pallbearer. Reinhardt's music has also been featured in the soundtracks of several video games, such as the 2002 game Mafia and several times in the 2007 game BioShock.

Reinhardt has been a subject in several works of fiction. Harlan Ellison's short story "Django" is a fantasia about a guitarist, with similarities to Reinhardt. Author William Kotzwinkle's 1989 collection, The Hot Jazz Trio stars Reinhardt in a surrealistic fantasy also featuring Jean Cocteau.

An extended discussion of Reinhardt takes place among several characters in the novel From Here to Eternity by James Jones. The character Andre Custine has a double bass that had been played by Reinhardt in the novel Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds. Reinhardt has been the subject of several songs, most notably "Django", a melancholy gypsy-flavored piece that jazz pianist John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet wrote in honor of his memory (1954); numerous versions of the song have been recorded, including one on the 1973 Lindsey Buckingham / Stevie Nicks self-titled debut album; it also appears on Joe Bonamassa's 2006 LP "You & Me".

The lyrics of the Norwegian song "Tanta til Beate" by Lillebjørn Nilsen mentions Django several times. He is mentioned in Jump Little Children's song "Mexico" as clearly influential and meaningful to the songwriter: "I won't let you leave, not with all my Django, Emmylou and Steve." The Django web application framework was named after Reinhardt, and so was the minor planet 94291 Django†.

Similar to 0 things you like: