PAUL
VERNON CHESTER
Manouche Maestro
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Manouche Maestro |
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Django C'est Arrivee
Django's Birth Certificate 23rd January 1910 The family were Manouche, a tribe that had migrated from its homeland in northwest India during the eleventh century and continued its travels throughout Europe. Their dark skin and dark, heavily-lidded eyes still betrayed their Hindu antecedents. Reinhardt's early years reflected the nomadic traditions of his people. He travelled around Europe and North Africa, finally settling just outside Paris at Barriere de Choisy in an area called the 'Zone' after 1918. "Jazz attracted me because in it I found a formal perfection and instrumental precision that I admire in classical music, but which popular music doesn't have." - Django Reinhardt Django's Departure on the 16th May 1953 Django made his last commercial recording on April 8, 1953, with a progressive group consisting of Vibes ("Fats" Lallemand), Piano (Martial Solal), Bass (Pierre Michelot), and Drums (Pierre Lemarchand).Differing accounts surround his death. May 16, 1953, when, while returning from the Avon, Seine-et-Marne train station, he collapsed outside his house from a brain haemorrhage. It took a full day for a doctor to arrive and Django was declared dead on arrival at the hospital in Fontainebleau.
After returning from a strenuous Swiss tour in mid-May, he complained of headaches and numbness in his arms. Refusing to see a doctor, he collapsed from a severe stroke and died in a Fontainebleau hospital the next day. It was when walking from the Avon train station in Fonteinbleau after playing in a Paris club that he collapsed outside his house from a Brain Haemorrhage. It took a full day for a doctor to arrive and Reinhardt was declared dead on arrival at the hospital in Fontainebleau. On the 16th May 1953 Django suffered a massive brain haemorrhage and was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital in Fontainebleau.
Dango was striving towards change. As if he already knew that he was going to have to break with the old formula and continue his search alone. And in his last years we find him no longer concerned with adapting his musical conceptions to the vagaries of current taste but looking for a radically different and completely personal mode of expression. Shortly before his premature death on May 16th 1953 we know that he had reached an understanding with a new generation of musicians such as Hubert Fol, Maurice Vander, Pierre Michelot and Martial Solal, men with whom he found himself perfectly in tune He remained an innovator to the end, but never lost the special lyrical tone and quality of his preferred instrument. It was as if his accommodations with modernism served only to emphasise his proud difference. In his first recording session, Martial Solal found himself accompanying the Belgian Gypsy guitar legend Django Reinhardt, who turned out to be playing on his last gig. ~ A Travellers Tale
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A
little town called Samois-sur-Seine, where Django Reinhardt, the most famous
Manouche guitarist of all time, lived during his last years and is buried. We
arrive in Samois and already I'm happy; I decide quickly that Samois is the
prettiest place I have seen thus far on my drive through Holland, Belgium and
France. Eating at a little coffee shop where Django would play, only round the
corner from his house, is a real treat! He picked a beautiful place to retire.
We finish our visit to Samois by going to the cemetery to pay respects to Django.
When we get there, we find three people cleaning Django's grave--a woman, a boy
and a girl. My father-in-law, Jean Pierre, starts a conversation with them. I
don't understand it since I only speak English, so I study the names on the
headstone; buried alongside Django are his son Babik, his brother Joseph (who
played rhythm guitar for the Hot Club) and his wife Naguine. Jean Pierre informs
me that the people tending the grave are the grandchildren of Django! He
and the older woman walk to the bottom of the cemetery; the rest of us are left
there wondering where they are headed. Alice's Aunt Francoise thinks the woman
must be showing Jean Pierre a place where her two sons will be playing later
that night. 
As they reach
the gate, they turn and motion for us to follow. We catch up. But we don't turn
left toward the village; we turn right-through and under the bushes into a
clearing where two caravans are parked! Not horse drawn, of course:
Renault and Peugot. Jean Pierre informs us that these people would not normally
be allowed to stay inside city limits, but as the grandchildren of Django, they
have been given special permission from the Mayor to stay a few days and clean
the grave. (I later found out that the Roma are the people most discriminated
against throughout Europe. I also want you to note that I did not use the term
"Gypsy" or "Gipsy," as I've come to learn that it is offensive.) The older woman
calls her two oldest sons out of one of the caravans, introduces me as a true
fan of Django, and tells them they should play for us. They oblige--or follow
orders--invite us into the trailer, and proceed to play classic Django
compositions for the next 20 minutes! The older of the two guitarists was Dallas
Baumgartner; I later figured out he must be the son of Henri Baumgartner,
Django's first-born from his first marriage. So, I assume the older woman at the
camp was the wife of Henri Baumgartner and mother of Dallas. Certainly, they
were giving hosts, who offered four strangers food, wine and music.
Steve Hussey
