Django Reinhardt (1910–1953)
Django is considered the first major figure in jazz who was not American. That he was a guitarist, considered a lowly part of the rhythm section, is even more remarkable. Born of a musical gypsy family in Belgium, Reinhardt spent his childhood in a shantytown gypsy encampment outside of Paris. By the age of twelve, he was playing banjo and violin on various gigs, and his first recordings, made in 1928, were with an accordionist and someone playing slide whistle.
That same year he had an accident with a candle in his caravan and was momentarily trapped in a blazing inferno. He was so badly burned that he was bedridden for eighteen months, and his left hand was so injured it did not seem likely that he would ever play a musical instrument again.
What he did next was an indication of sheer genius and willpower. He came up with a completely radical way of playing the guitar using the two uninjured fingers on his left hand, barring the guitar neck occasionally with the fused stumps of the rest of his fingers, which gave his playing a harmonically distinctive “modern” sound. He also developed his right-hand technique, and his famous liquid chromatic runs were achieved by coordinating one shift of a left-hand finger with a down-or upstroke of his plectrum in his right hand, for each note of the phrase.
That Django and Grappelli work well on disc is clearly evident. That they distrusted each other for the whole of their playing career is not. Django was a fiery, emotionally powerful, and naturally inventive improviser, but he was also impetuous and unpredictable. Grappelli was his opposite — cool, elegant, the “straw boss” of the group who made it all happen behind the scenes.
At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the group was in London. Grappelli stayed in England, while Django returned to Paris. Ironically, despite the fact that the Nazis despised jazz, jazz seemed to flourish after they occupied France in 1940. Django reorganized the Hot Club of France, replacing one of the guitarists with a drummer and Grappelli with a clarinet player.
His first recordings on guitar were made in 1931 as an accompanist to a singer. Accustomed to listening to and playing the improvised forms of gypsy music, he was fascinated with American jazz and its parallels to flamenco.
It's more than likely he was listening to recordings of Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, guitarist Lonnie Johnson, and violinist Joe Venuti and his sides with guitarist Eddie Lang, who also recorded some classic guitar duets with Lonnie Johnson.
By 1935, after recording with Hawkins and Michel Warlop's group, Reinhardt had attracted the attention of visiting American musicians. Record dates with Hawkins, Benny Carter, Dicky Wells, Eddie South, and Bill Coleman resulted in some classic recordings. In 1934, the Quintette Du Hot Club De France was formed, featuring Django on lead guitar, two rhythm guitars, a bass player, and violinist Stephane Grappelli.
Django had ambitions to compose for larger groups, but he was handicapped by the fact that he could neither read nor write music and was thus dependent on others to take down his musical dictation.
The Selmer Maccaferri, made famous by Django Reinhardt, had a D-shaped sound hole, a flat cutaway, and two-octave fingerboard. The internal strutting was developed to enhance the volume and sustain. The guitar was launched in 1932, but by the end of the 1940s, Django was using a Stimer pickup attached to his Maccaferri, using a small combination amp to get an electric sound.
Coming to America
After the war, Django went to America for a series of concerts. He expected to be feted as a conquering hero, but the audiences were cool to his antics. He brought no guitar with him, for example, and people had to rush around finding one for him to play. At his first concert, with Duke Ellington's band at Carnegie Hall, he was so late that Ellington was forced to offer an embarrassed apology for Django's nonappearance. Shortly after, Django strolled on stage and began to play.
Adopting Electric
In 1946, Reinhardt reunited with Grappelli, although he continued to play with other lineups as well. The major change in his career was his adoption of the electric guitar.
From 1937 onward, he had played a Selmer Maccaferri, a specially designed guitar that was louder than the normal acoustic instrument. After his American adventure, he fitted a “Charlie Christian” bar pickup on the Maccaferri, before eventually going all-electric in 1950.
By this time Reinhardt's improvisation was being influenced by the newly emerging bebop style of Charlie Christian and Charlie Parker, with their more sophisticated and complex harmonies and rhythms. In the last couple years of his life Reinhardt went into semi-retirement in the village of Samois-sur-Seine, spending his time fishing, painting, and playing billiards. Yet he continued to play with the emerging French bebop players like pianist Martial Solal and Raymond Fol, and alto saxophonist Hubert Fol. He recorded his last record on a purely electric instrument with this next generation of musicians.
On May 16, 1953, he finished playing at the Club St. Germaine in Paris and caught the train to Avon, the station nearest to Samois. He went to a local bar for a drink and passed out. He was rushed to a hospital in Fon-tainebleu but soon died. Three days later he was buried in Samois, at the age of forty-three.
