PAUL VERNON CHESTER

Manouche Maestro
 

Art and Django

A study of Django by Alex Campbell
The painting is an original, framed, acrylic painting on canvas by the artist. It depicts a relaxed Django Reinhardt in a stylised Art Deco/Cubist style. The frethand suggests more dexterity to the damaged fingers and Django's two main fret fingers are made rigid to suit the framed background.  The Sharpness pays homage to Djangos ever Sartorial Elegance albeit in Red, White and Blue of the French Tricolor - Django was Belgian. The blank Guitar fretboard becomes a convenient rigid diagonal - a feint reference perhaps to the Auld Alliance with Scotland.   The ear left black - afro-american music source. One eyebrow denied. Picking with extended thumb. Top String omitted.
Alex Campbell was born in 1936 in Dukinfield, Cheshire. He moved to Nannerch, North Wales in 1973 where there was a wealth of natural beauty and social history for a professional artist to exploit, just waiting to be expressed in art!  At an exhibition in 1999, an art critic described his work as a ‘merger of all the European art movements at the beginning of the 20th Century’. Indeed, cubism, futurism, expressionism, vorticism and other similar movements are all his favourites and are present within all his works.  Campbell always uses acrylic paint, producing striking images, some with humour. He uses recognised colour theories, whilst adding unique ideas of his own.

Roger Chaput's mischievous caricature of Django befits him with Studded Boots one thumping out the rhythm and the other waving in free air. The pocket handkerchief and elegant manner is recorded and the flailing pick hand.  The Fret hand accurately recorded as is the oval hole Selmer Maccaferri. The crossed legs are misplaced or did he consider Django had two left feet and hairy legs.  Altogether an affectionate if provocative image of the man he supported as rhythm guitarist for so little reward.

Roger Chaput 1968 Painting 'Peaceful Needlework'

Roger Chaput sat in on a between sets jam at the Claridge Hotel in Paris with Django, Steph and Loius Vola and the Quintet was born.

In the early days, he enjoyed the exhilaration of being part of a band that was creating a whole new musical genre but as the years passed, he gradually began extricating himself from an arrangement that he felt to be financially unacceptable.

Both Reinhardt and Grappelli were notorious for being extremely mean with their sideman. The last occasion Roger Chaput recorded with the Hot Club Quintet was in January 1938 during the groups first visit to the UK. By the time they returned to tour later in the year, he had left.

Zdiano's inspiration taken from a picture of a 1930.s fashion flaunting Django with high waist Trousers, Braces and Flat White Hat, leaning nonchalantly with free arm akimbo against a car  - perhaps not his own. Then add the Azure creation a Guitar coupled with blue Clouds - a reference to Djangos famous composition Nuages - and the Sound hole becomes the Sun as the source of life.  The strings well - Joni Mitchell referred to hers in 'Amelia' as Jet Trails from the Bombers riding Shotgun in Sky.

Works in an advertising agency as in house graphic designer. Wants  to be exposed to a wider audience and eventually sell an art online. What he wants to achieve in his art is to show moods, faces, gestures in everyday human life.

Dango's Django in his Kitchen and Similar Theme by Chris Alan Daniels

The Vogue Records LP Cover Artwork

CD Cover illustration to his own album Suite Django - a pun chosen by Paul Vernon Chester - the artwork is a montage of references to Django's Life.
 

Django at 18years

The Broad Brimmed White 'Panama' Hat, perhaps Django's Son - Babik as all gypsy children grew up to the sounds of music, Naguine - Django's Wife as in the lobby of the picture., the Young Django with hat and cravat, Grande Bouche and Petite Bouche Selmer Maccaferri' Guitars, Django's fire damaged Fret Hand by Roger S. Baxter '95 is included as a tender study, a reference to Samois Sur seine the last home and resting place for Django and 'Nin-Nin' Joseph Reinhardt who peers out from the Centre.  Duke Ellington who invited Django to the USA represents his shattered American Dream.  The artists image appears fittingly top right in the background as an expert of the genre and a player with his middle name in French adjacent, The young Grappelli above Django's fret hand.  Centre two remaining faces may be Delawney and Sablon.  Added is the ever different Django signature adjacent to the master's Image.

Above a Selmer Sales Poster with an eerie Juxtaposition Picture of Ade Holland also fine exponent of Manouche Swing taken in the early 1960's (only a short period after Django's death) in Corby with his original 1930's Maccaferri's - not one but two - Petite and Grande Bouche.  Life was far from simple post war. Ade now lives in Reading and is teaching both Jazz Guitar and Manouche Swing Techniques - he now wishes he had kept both Macca's instead of almost giving them away.

He acquired amazing dexterity with those two fingers, but that did not mean he did not employ the others. He learned to grip the guitar with his little finger on the E String and the next finger on the B. That accounts for some of those chord progressions which was probably the first to perform on the guitar… at least in the jazz idiom.‘

The French poet, writer, artist, and film maker Jean Maurice Eugene Clement Cocteau was born to a wealthy family on July 5, 1889 in a small town near Paris, France. Cocteau's father committed suicide when he was about 10 years old.

In 1900, he entered a private school and was expelled in 1904. After his expulsion from school, Cocteau ran away to Marseilles where he lived in the "red light district" under a false name. Police discovered him in Marseilles and returned him to his uncle's care.

The death of an associate was a severe blow to Cocteau and drove him to use opium. During Cocteau's recovery from his opium addiction, the artist created some of his most important works including the stage play Orphee, the novel, Les Enfants Terribles, and many long poems.

Sketch reputedly of Django 1937 was used for the Cover of Charles Delaunay's Book.  Above Django with Cocteau

By David Pollard?Suzanne Cerny

Reinhardt", acrylic on canvas, 45 x 40 cm. Present to David McGovern, for his wedding to Ruth Atkinson, Liverpool, 28 February 2009. Why give Django six fingers on his fret hand as he only used his two main fingers to make it sound like six.
Jack Vanderwyk (1951)
is a Dutch writer & painter who lives and works in Nice, Côte d'Azur.

Geoff Beasley
BA - Ravensbourne College of Art and Design
Royal Academy Schools
MA - Nottingham Trent University

http://djangoswing.canalblog.com/

Le Expo Django and Swing 2010

Exhibition Inspired by Django and Swing

Stéphane GOIFFON

Producer of Exhibition "Django & Swing"

Blois - France

Industrial Design

Billards Breton the acclaimed luxury billiards manufacturer from France has announced the launch of their limited edition Django pool table which looks as exotic as it sounds. The table is dedicated to the great jazz maestro Gypsy Django Reinhardt. It couldn’t get more exotic and retro than that. It comes with cylindrical legs which is also polished with stainless steel and looks as posh as a pool table can get. The table Design was also collaborated with a Bulgarian company called the UNIK and has already been installed in Monaco’s Moods nightclub.

Django was known to be a great spender of money. No sooner had he earned his wages, or taken an advance on a gig yet to be played, the money would be gone. Usually to the benefit of a local bookie. Django was a fine billiard player, once again displaying his amazing hand/eye co-ordination. Though he would often give so many points away as a handicap at the start of the game he invariably lost.

Django
 - the web developers tool named after the Maestro
Developed some years ago by a fast-moving online-news operation, Django was designed to handle two challenges: the intensive deadlines of a newsroom and the stringent requirements of the experienced Web developers who wrote it. It lets you build high-performing, elegant Web applications quickly.

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Last modified: 29/07/2010