Django Reinhardt - 'Pêche à la Mouche: The Great Blue Star Sessions 1947/1953'

 

One of the few genuine legends of the music, Jean Baptiste Reinhardt, was born at Liverchies in Belgium. He was something of a prodigy and played professionally before his teens. When he was eighteen, a fire in his caravan seriously damaged his hand, and for the rest of his life he had to work with two clawed fingers on his fretting hand. As erratic as he was brilliant, he seemed predestined to a short and spectacular career, and he died aged just 43 at Samois, near Paris.

On the evening of July 25, 1965, Django Reinhardt took the stage at the Newport Folk Festival in black jeans, black boots, and a black leather jacket, carrying a Fender Stratocaster in place of his familiar Selmer 503 guitar.

Wait, What? Sorry, I'm confusing Django Reinhardt with Bob Dylan. 

Be that as it may, after World War II, Django went electric, and I'll bet many a Frenchman thought to themselves, "Ce putain de Judas belge!"

When most people think of Django Reinhardt at his best, they think of the period between 1935 until the outbreak of war in 1939, which permanently broke up the original Quintette du Hot Club de France.  Stephane Grappelli, who was gay, understandably fled soon-to-be occupied France to wait out the war in Great Britain, while Reinhardt chose to stay with his Romani compatriots in the wagon camps on the outskirts of Paris.

During the war, there were many closet Jazz Fans among the German Officers (Jazz was not allowed in the Third Reich).  One of these was Dietrich Schulz-Koehn of the Luftwaffe, whom was a big fan Django’s, and who more than once got him out of a tight corner.  This allowed Parisian jazz fans to flock to hear him in dark, cramped "bal musette" nightclubs and large auditoriums alike, with the the Clarinet accompaniment of Hubert Rostaing instead of Stephane Grappelli's Violin.

Some people claim, "Django without Grappelli is like bread without butter" (myself, I prefer a baguette, with extra virgin olive oil).  As much as I adore the original Quintette du Hot Club de France, the Blue Star Sessions make a nice change of pace from "La Pompe" (the pump), sometimes called ‘La Pompe Manouche’, which is the standard 'choppy' rhythm in Manouche Jazz.

On these recordings Django transferred his fleet-fingered runs and advanced harmonic concepts from the acoustic to the electric, but he also realized how his style could evolve to take advantage of the tonal variety and, most importantly, the added sustain of the electric guitar.  In addition, this essential landmark of jazz guitar also shows in startling detail how he was absorbing the advanced ideas of Bebop.  It should also be pointed out how influential these recordings are, as Wes Montgomery, Tal Farlow, and George Benson (to name but a few) site these recordings as a major influence.

For the freeload tell us who's your favorite non-rock guitarist.