Django's Haunts

Many jazz historians feel that were it not for Paris’s whole-hearted welcome of jazz and African-American jazz musicians, the music might never have fully developed and found its place in the world.  From 1914 through the 1930’s, the hot spot for jazz in Paris was old Montmartre, a section of the city in which many African-American jazz musicians lived, and the site of many legendary jazz clubs, including Le Grand Duc and Bricktop’s. Decades later, the now ritzy streets just off of the Champs-Elysees were the place to go. Today, jazz can be found all over the city, from huge public venues, to small cozy settings, to a single musician blowing jazz standards on his sax on (or under) a bridge.

Le Boite a Matelots 1932 - The Sailors Dive a copy of the Palm Beach Club in Cannes
Vola got a gig with his band in Boîte á Matelots in Pigalle Paris, opened by Léon Volterre and he directed the orchestra to entertain the guests in the famous Claridge Hotel at its Thé Dansants; he played the accordion in the 14-men tango-orchestra.

“Le Croix du Sud” club in Montparnasse
At the end of 1930, Grappelli was back in Paris and by 1931 was regularly engaged at the Croix du Sud, an avant-garde bohemian establishment frequented by, among other talents, Django Reinhardt. 

Le Caveau de la Huchette is a jazz club in the Latin Quarterof Paris. The building dates to the sixteenth century, but became a jazz club in 1946. The design has been compared to a cellar or labyrinth and allegedly it was once used by Mystics and Freemasons.  Since becoming a jazz club it has been a venue for American greats like Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, and Art Blakey, as well as leading French jazz musicians like Claude Luter and Claude Bolling. Bill Coleman was an American expatriate in France who is also associated with the club.

Le Peit Journal Saint-Michel Famous, gorgeous old Parisian jazz club in the heart of St. Michel

Le Bilboquet, 13 rue Saint-Benoit 6th is a Paris jazz institution dating back to 1947. This is a great place to soak up the unique ambience in this classy establishment. Miles, Duke and Bird all played back in the day. Situated right in the heart of Saint-Germain 50 yards from Les Deux Maggots, it is utterly authentic, beautifully decorated and lit and superb, intimate sound.

L'escadrille
It seems natural that Eugene Bullard, the runaway, the entertainer, the boxer, the decorated hero and first black WW1 pilot, would learn to play music, he became a drummer and started a Jazz Band playing at the Le Grande Duc . The years following WW1 were his best, and Eugene Bullard became the L'escadrille jazz club owner and was friends with people like Louis Armstrong, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, and the Prince of Wales, Edward Windsor.  The Nazi Occupation and his involvement with the French Resistance meant that the club was confiscated forcing him to leave Paris.
 

Le Grande Duc - (52 rue Pigalle)
A job at Le Grand Duc, a popular black nightclub, gave Langston Hughes glimpses of the haut monde who supported Montmartre's night life, but more importantly it brought him into close contact with the black musicians and entertainers who gathered after hours for early morning jam sessions. While absorbing the richness of black culture in exile, he was amused to observe the absurdity of the American colour bar as exposed by the club's singer, Florence Embry, who delighted in snubbing tourists "who wanted nothing in the world so much as to have her sit down with them." Among the many great black entertainers Hughes met at Le Grand Duc was Florence Embry's replacement, Ada 'Bricktop' Smith-Ducongé, who would take advantage of the atmosphere Paris offered blacks to rise in ten years from a penniless unknown to "the toast of Montmartre with dukes and princes at her table." Among the other patrons at Le Grand Duc was publisher and poet Nancy Cunard,

Le Tabou was a cellar club located at 33 Rue Dauphine in Saint Germain des Pres, Paris. The club opened shortly after Club des Lorientias on 11 April 1947...

The Music Box in Paris
Chez Mitchell

Casino de Paris (16 rue De Clichy)

Tadd Dameron gave Cab Kaye UK Singer his first and only piano lesson. In the Club St. Germain Cab Kaye played with guitarist Django Reinhardt who had become more interested in Bebop

Le Boeuf sur le Toit

34 Rue du Colisée 75008 Paris, France
“The Nothing Doing Bar”

On January 22, 1922 was inaugurated near the Rond-Point des Champs-Elysees, the jazz club "Le Boeuf sur le Toit", which became the first temple of jazz in Paris. Wiener, a young pianist won by jazz, plays almost every night ragtime. Other musicians attending the club, the pianist Arthur Rubinstein and the composer Maurice Ravel.  That's where Ravel meets Vaucher trombonist Leo Arnaud, one of the pioneers of jazz in France who is engaged to Hollywood in 1936 as an orchestrator and conductor. This is also the club that the guitarist Django Reinhardt attends.

The Boeuf sur le Toit was first established in 1922 by Louis Moysès, and originally it was located on Rue Boissy d'Anglas, but then moved to Rue de Penthievre and then in 1941 it moved again to its present location which is on the Rue du Colisee. In this case, 'boeuf' is nothing to do with beef, but actually French slang for a jam session, and there are still frequent jazz concerts at the restaurant once a favourite of Jean Cocteau. Louis Moysès (the owner of the cabaret, who used to serve Champagne to Django)
 

In 1943, at the age of 20, Bernard Peiffer made his professional debut with alto saxophonist Andre Ekyan. Soon after, he was hired by Django Reinhardt to play with a ten-piece band at Boeuf Sur Le Toit in Paris.

Bernard credited Reinhardt with teaching him the music business, and Django predicted a brilliant career for Peiffer.

Their musical association and friendship continued through the years; Django, not known for his fondness of working with pianists, would often show up nightly to Bernard's engagements to "sit in."

Le Bal Tabarin Cabaret 1944
Django at Bal Tabarin 1944

this is a good quality copy. It shows "Django Reinhardt et son Orchestra" at Bal Tabarin in 1944. Django appears just after the sequence showing Marlene Dietrich at 1.50. The speed of his fingers and his vibrato are amazing. At the start of the clip, Gerard Leveque and Joseph Reinhardt can be seen in the background on stage. The background music does not appear on record anywhere and was almost certainly recorded at the gig. The tunes are "Night & Day", "Shorty George" and the opening sequence to "I Can't Give You Anything But Love". The voice that can be heard on a couple of occasions sounds very much like Charles Delaunay.

|Django tuning up at the Boeuf

El RODEO
1946: In May / June: Django Reinhardt with the Quintet renovated shines with the young but promising Michel VILLERS Saxophone.
 

Rue Pigalle 1939

La Roulotte - Name of Django's own Night Club - later "Chez Django Reinhardt"

CLUB SAINT GERMAIN 13, rue Saint Benedict (6th)
This was one of the jazz clubs of Paris's most famous. Opened June 11, 1947, animated first by Boris Vian and the former team of TABOO, including Juliette Greco. In the late '40s and for three years, the orchestra is directed by Jean-Claude Fohrenbach. It included: Longnon Guy (trumpet), Benny Vasseur (Tb), Claude BEARING (alto saxophone), Maurice Vander and Raymond FOL (piano), Alf and Barry MASSELIER SPIEL (former bassist Benny Goodman) and Robert Barnett (drums) .   We can applaud: Django Reinhardt, Martial Solal, Barney WILEN ... but many Americans visiting the capital: Lester Young, Kenny Clarke, Miles Davis ...
 1947 / 48 / 49: Boris Vian leads the small set of CLUB SAINT GERMAIN Jean-Claude and Hubert Fohrenbach FOL
1948: At the end of the year: Afternoon: Claude BOLLING and his orchestra.
1949-1950: Boris Vian and his orchestra.
Jean-Claude Fohrenbach and his new training with Roy ELDRIDGE current 1950.

Club Saint Germain

The German occupation, paradoxically, is a rich moment for the life in St.Germain. Indeed, the German didn’t like much this part of Paris and avoided it. Wasn't  her greatest pride , the quasi-absence of German soldiers during the Occupation, when the huns paraded fiercely on the Grands Boulevards, Opera, Champs Elysees. The intellectual and literary aura and prestige of St.Germain was sufficient to put them in discomfort!. An anecdote from the guide du  Routard, (I quote): “In the winter Simone de Beauvoir came always first thing in the morning to the " Flore" to have a seat near the stove. It was so bitter cold elsewhere! Sartre recreated the atmosphere of an English club.. Everybody listened to jazz, read poems or played little acts.”
 
It’s after the liberation that Saint-Germain became world known with its nightlife, its cave nightclubs, avant-garde music, jazz, and women in black pants and with long hair. The most representative of that period are Sidney Bechet, Claude Luter, Boris Vian and Juliette Greco (under the benevolent eye of Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Albert Camus, meeting in “Le Tabou” (rue Dauphine), in the club of the “Vieux Colombier”. American be-bop is the absolute trend. The area was one of the most animated in Paris! Even if the memory of that period is long time gone, something still remains. And don't forget, on the Place Saint-Germain , the Deux Magots is still there, even if it's become the most expensive coffee or any drink in Paris.  

At night in the famous cellars, such as " Le Bar Vert" or " Le Tabou" that caused such a scandal. In these cellars, artists listen to the New Orleans Jazz and the Be Bop, brought to the Club Saint Germain or to the Blue Note by Sidney Bechet, Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Juliette Gréco and Anne- Marie Cazalis are the queens of those nights and launch the existentialist stream.

Dans un Club de St Germain-des-Pres.  Paris.  1956.

Lionel Hampton Club now Jazz Club Etoile

Chez Bricktop
Born Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith in 1890’s West Virginia, she moved with her family when she was still a child to Chicago where, at a very tender age, she was caught up in the saloon life of the city. It was there that she acquired the nickname Bricktop for her flaming red hair and freckles. By the time she was sixteen, she was a touring vaudevillean and in her early twenties in New York City, she’d already changed the future of American entertainment by getting the young Duke Ellington one of this first gigs.

Chez Bricktop where her headliner was Mabel Mercer (see my last blog). The celebrities of the day flocked to her club, including the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Tallulah Bankhead and, of course, Cole Porter himself. Langston Hughes, of all people, was a busboy (or a dishwasher, depending on what you read) in her club. Josephine Baker was one of her protegés, and the two women enjoyed a lesbian affair for a time.