Django Reinhardt
Albums
![Best of Django Reinhardt [Capitol/Blue Note]](/cache/JHS/c8/130x130_on-sale_c81532xh50o.png)
Tread cautiously when the title of an album starts off with the phrase "the best of." It's not that the music on the album will be lacking, but that [more]
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There is something carefree and joyful about the music of Django Reinhardt; something that comes bubbling to the surface every time he begins a wild run of notes on his acoustic [more]
- Member Price: $10.98
Released in 1996, BGO's double-disc tribute to Django Reinhardt stands among numerous compilations focusing upon the Gypsy guitarist's collaborations [more]
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![I Got Rhythm [Jazz Hour]](/cache/JHS/d3/130x130_on-sale_d366984663n.png)
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During the LP era, Django Reinhardt's discography seemed substantial and pleasantly challenging; along came digital reproduction with the emergence of uncommon or previously [more]
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- Member Price: $11.68
![Swingin' with Django [Golden Stars]](/cache/JHS/e7/130x130_on-sale_e77744q69vp.png)
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In 2002, BGO released Django/Django in Rome 1949-1950, which contained two albums -- Django and Django in Rome 1949-1950 -- by Django Reinhardt on one compact disc. ~ Tim Sendra, All Music Guide
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Jazz in Paris: Swing 48 collects some of Django Reinhardt's best electric guitar performances from the late '40s, including {"Pêche à la Mouche,"} "Minor Blues," "Night [more]
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Appearances
This expansive four-disc anthology essentially covers the recorded history of the guitar in the 20th century, beginning with the ragtime banjo that set the [more]
- Member Price: $59.98
Tread cautiously when the title of an album starts off with the phrase "the best of." It's not that the music on the album will be lacking, but that [more]
- List Price: $16.99
- Member Price: $11.98
In conjunction with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns' ten-part 2000 PBS special, Columbia/Legacy and Verve teamed up to issue a special series of [more]
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Django Reinhardt was one of the greatest jazz guitarists of all-time. His story is remarkable, for not only was he an illiterate gypsy from [more]
- List Price: $35.98
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There is something carefree and joyful about the music of Django Reinhardt; something that comes bubbling to the surface every time he begins a wild run of notes on his acoustic [more]
- Member Price: $10.98
Released in 1996, BGO's double-disc tribute to Django Reinhardt stands among numerous compilations focusing upon the Gypsy guitarist's collaborations [more]
- List Price: $26.98
- Member Price: $24.28
- List Price: $12.98
- Member Price: $11.68
The bulk of this CD reissues a brilliant 1982 session featuring altoist Benny Carter with the tenors of Plas Johnson and Jerome Richardson, plus a variety of top European [more]
- Member Price: $22.43
During the LP era, Django Reinhardt's discography seemed substantial and pleasantly challenging; along came digital reproduction with the emergence of uncommon or previously [more]
- List Price: $12.98
- Member Price: $11.68
Biography
- Born Jan 23rd 1910 in Liberchies, Belgium
- Died May 16th 1953 in Fontainebleau, France
Django Reinhardt 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 Stephane Grappelli and a bare handful of others. A free-spirited gypsy, Reinhardt wasn't the most reliable person in the world, frequently wandering off into the countryside on a whim. Yet Reinhardt came up with a unique way of propelling the humble acoustic guitar into the front line of a jazz combo in the days before amplification became widespread. He would spin joyous, arcing, marvelously inflected solos above the thrumming base of two rhythm guitars and a bass, with Grappelli's elegantly gliding violin serving as the perfect foil. His harmonic concepts were startling for their time -- making a direct impression upon Charlie Christian and Les Paul, among others -- and he was an energizing rhythm guitarist behind Grappelli, pushing their groups into a higher gear. Not only did Reinhardt put his stamp upon jazz, his string band music also had an impact upon the parallel development of Western swing, which eventually fed into the wellspring of what is now called country music. Although he could not read music, with Grappelli and on his own, 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."
A violinist first and a guitarist later, Jean Baptiste "Django" Reinhardt grew up in a gypsy camp near Paris where he absorbed the gypsy strain into his music. A disastrous caravan fire in 1928 badly burned his left hand, depriving him of the use of the fourth and fifth fingers, but the resourceful Reinhardt figured out a novel fingering system to get around the problem that probably accounts for some of the originality of his style. 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.
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. His Hot Club recordings from the `30s are his most irresistible legacy; their spirit and sound can be felt in current groups like Holland's Rosenberg Trio. ~ Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide
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