PAUL VERNON CHESTER

Manouche Maestro
 

Django Remembered

JERRY REED

Even if I had complete command of the English language, and even if I knew how to be eloquent, I still don't think I could come up with a word, sentence, or phrase that could adequately describe the way I feel about Django Reinhardt's playing. I have never in my lifetime heard another human being perform with such fire and such love and such emotion.

He was in my estimation the freest spirit I'll ever hear on the guitar.

Larry Coryell
Django was one of the most amazing artists of the first half of the 20th Century. He played "impossible" things on his guitar. The recordings that survive clearly indicate that he was years ahead of most of the people he was playing with. His influence first came to my attention when I was listening to Chet Atkins playing with Homer and Jethro on an old RCA country record around 1956. They were definitely "Django-inspired," especially the mandolin player, Jethro Burns. Django could swing through the changes, and he'd really explode on the bridge. When he returned to the main theme, he would carry on to an even more exciting level, throwing in string bends and octaves that added the extra-special flourish that made Django one-of-a-kind. Charlie Christian used to rip through bridges like that, too, and he and Django helped form the literature upon which all modern jazz guitar is based. Django represents the universality of modern improvised music. There will never be another Django. His music, his guitar artistry, everything he was as a person, smacked of genius. I'll bet he smiled a lot.
 

CHET ATKINS
The first time I ever heard Django was after I got a job professionally in Knoxville, Tennessee. I was working as staff guitarist with a group called The Dixieland Swingsters, and the trumpet player in the group started telling me about Django Reinhardt and also at the same time about Charlie Christian, who I had never heard. He got some old 78 records of Django out of the library and played them, and I was impressed, but at that time I wasn't far enough along, I guess, to really appreciate it. I was just learning to play myself; I was about seventeen or eighteen years old. Later on when I had a little more knowledge of the guitar, I went out and bought a lot of his albums and started copying some of the things he did. And, of course, at the same time I was hearing Les Paul who was one of Django's "students". After a while I got so I really admired his technique. Then there were all the stories, of course, of his problem with having only two fingers. In 1946, I was up in Chicago without a job, and he played there with Duke Ellington, at the Civic Centre. Well, I got a ticket and went down. I was in the back seats, so I couldn't see very well. But he played with Duke and played a great concert. I went backstage and hung around; and he finally came out, and I stuck a piece of paper up in front of him. He felt around and said, "You have pencil?" I said, "Sure," so I gave him a pencil, and he wrote "D. Reinhardt." And he smiled, and I smiled back, and there was a soldier there that kept asking, "Django, you remember me? I was in that joint one night in Paris, and we played guitar together." He said, "Yes, yes" he seemed like a really nice guy.
Anyway, I wanted to play some for him, because I didn't think that he would have ever heard any finger guitar like I play because me and Merle Travis, at that time, were the only ones doing it. But I didn't get to do that.
Then later on I was talking to Duke Ellington in Denver, and I asked him what happened to Django. He said Django went back to Paris, because somebody at the William Morris Agency had beat him playing billiards, and he got mad and left. I think Django considered himself to be a great billiards player, and he couldn't stand getting beaten like that. Years later I recorded a tune of Django's, "Manoir de mes Reves" [Nashville Gold, RCA Camden, CAS2555]. I think literally translated it means "Castle Of My Dreams." But I called it "Django's Castle," and a bunch of jazz people picked it up and recorded it under that title. Also because of that, Gene Goodman, a publisher, put it out with some other Django tunes [A Treasury Of Django Reinhardt Solos, Jewel Music Publishing Co., 110 East 59th St., New York, NY 100221]. So I like to think that maybe indirectly I helped his widow a little by getting that folio out. I still admire Django very much, and I listen to him like I do Bix Beiderbecke. You can listen to Django and imagine a modern rhythm section with him and really tell what a great player he was.

IRVING ASHBY
It was circa 1937 when I first heard Django on the radio-Hot Club Of France. He shook me up! I had never heard anyone play that fast. He used what was called in those days the "tremolo gliss." Guitarists to this day have been trying to perfect it to the extent that Django had. Arv Garrison and Oscar Moore are still the only guitarists I know of who come close to doing it. I never met Django, but when I was in Paris I heard about how he played for the kids on the streets - or anyone, for that matter. I feel that he inspired me and many others to venture forth with new ideas and play-play what comes from the heart. "To thine own self be true"-we learned it from Django.

HOWARD ROBERTS
Django was before my time, so I'm not an expert on the subject.

But two things stand out:
1) Whatever he did had a lasting impact on guitar playing up to today; his input is still obvious.

2) Guitar players will be hard-pressed to blame the hands for not being up to the task of physical facility. Django, with a severe handicap in his left hand, demonstrated blinding speed, which should settle the question that the fountainhead of technique is not a physical but a mental source.

BARNEY KESSEL
Django's music became important to me many years after the initial exposure. When I first heard him I probably was incapable of really seeing what he had to offer at that time, but that was based on my inexperience. Mostly, Django was a master improviser; I wouldn't call him a "Jazz" player. He had great feelings and was very individual - because when he came out in those days he didn't have a chance to listen to long playing records or meet many American musicians. Being in Europe, he did not have the stimulus and interaction of meeting many other people, so he developed quite a bit on his own. He just had a great Gypsy talent and a love for jazz, and it all just sort of came out to be "Django." For me personally, he is a voice that I like to listen to; I'm more aware of the music than the guitar - what he is saying and the feeling and conviction and assurance behind it. His playing has surprise, unpredictability, moments of gentleness - then all of a sudden some fantastic, fiery run in the middle of everything. At this point in time, he maintains a position of being one of the few truly individualistic voices on the guitar, without it necessarily being what I'd call "hip jazz" or a part of any school or movement. As an indication of the way Django was, I once recall hearing that he was playing at a club in England or France, and he was taking a break, and someone drove by in a car and asked him if he would like to go to Germany.  Django said okay and just got in the car and left-didn't even go back to finish his set or get his instrument. Playing with Stephane Grappelli in Paris, and having a chance to get one of Django's guitars, and meet his family, and just to be in that environment, I picked up a lot of vibrations of the feeling that those people that he knew and played with had for music. It was a very passionate, Gypsy feeling.
Django today has become kind of a superstar in his own way, the way that the Marx Brothers, Mae West, and W.C. Fields have become. He symbolises the Gypsy spirit, the thing in everyone that wants to be free-to be an adult but not lose the childlike quality. Above all-and this is the inspiring part-he had already been playing guitar for some years before his injury, but the fact that he wasn't able to use two fingers did not discourage him. Rather, he kept on and went on to be the guitarist that he hadn't even been before the accident happened. He evolved to a point with his handicap that was far higher than he had before his handicap. His life, and the way that he continued, should be an inspiration to anyone to overcome adversity and rise above it.

Barney Kessel owned one of Django’s Selmer guitars, and he said it was difficult to play chords on and didn’t stay in tune very well. There are definitely some inherent tuning issues with that style of guitar.
Sometimes, if you play an octave on the B and the D strings in the middle of the neck, the D string is flat and the B string is sharp. 
Django definitely developed a style to suit that instrument, although he played other guitars before the Selmer.
The Selmer came out in 1932, I think, and he didn’t get his first one until 1934.
So his style was already intact at that time.
There are stories about when he came to America without a guitar, because he figured the Americans would be lining up to give him guitars to play.
Well, they didn’t, so his tour manager bought him a non-cutaway Gibson with a P-90, and he was really bummed out.
 He wrote back to his manager: “Don’t speak to me about American tin-pot guitars anymore!”

B B King
Django was one of my idols. He had a touch that made him Django Reinhardt and nobody else and as far as I'm concerned, one of the greatest in the guitar business. He'd identify himself on his instrument. Today we've got a lot of great guitarists, but most of them don't identify themselves. But with Django, you knew without a doubt who he was the minute he'd start to play. And to me, it was sweet music; his guitar seemed to talk, in other words, I heard it. He played music that was sophisticated to me, but a layman like myself could still understand it. I've got more albums on him than on anybody; when I was in France I must have bought fifty records of the Hot Club Of France. I would never have the speed or the technique that Django had, but I love him so much that I'm sure if you listened carefully you could hear a little bit of him in my playing. I just wish everybody could hear him.
 

MARY OSBORNE
In the February 1974 issue of Guitar Player there appeared a picture of Django with me.
During his tour with Duke Ellington, he came into Kelly's Stables where I was appearing with my trio and spent several evenings listening.
He kissed my hands after every set, and he was a most gracious person.
This was a highlight in my life, because when I first started playing guitar I listened to records of Django with the Quintet Of The Hot Club Of France.

SAL SALVADOR
I've always likened Django to pianist Art Tatum: Django's flawless, incredible technique; totally uninhibited abandon in his improvising; his intense, fierce involvement in what he was performing; his absolutely full, imaginative use of the instrument; the tremolo effect and string bends I hear in so much of today's contemporary music. Yet he had a romantic touch when playing the melody of a tune. He's touched most of us; he's always been there and probably always will be in one way or another as long as somebody's playing lead-guitar solo lines. He was certainly an innovator who has fed many things to many guitarists. Django was the first I ever heard play octaves on the guitar. His long, flowing lines with sparkling bursts made for fascinating choruses. He may have, but I've never heard him play an uninteresting chorus. Lesson for today's player: Learn your instrument as thoroughly as he did, so you'll have command at the playing level, and you can bring out what's inside of you no matter what bag you're into. Throughout the years I've been playing he has provided me with many happy listening and learning hours. Hats off to "Django the Great"!
 

TONY MOTTOLA
I remember as a youngster of sixteen forming a group patterned after Django's quintet. We called ourselves The Blue Blazers, and AI Quail was the other guitarist. Another fond memory is the all guitar jam sessions [in New York City] at the old Epiphone factory on Fourteenth Street and at Eddie Bell's and Johnny D'Angelico's where young aspiring guitarists would get together and try out the new axes and try to "out-Django" one another. Django did it all. His playing of ballads with such warmth and sensitivity and his tremendous technique on up-tempo performances (in spite of his handicap) were truly unbelievable. And on that acoustic guitar yet!  Recently I was involved in a recording project that required my listening to performances of a varied group of guitarists. Django was one of these, and his playing made it a labour of love. The passage of time has in no way diminished his greatness. His recordings should be required listening for every serious student of the guitar.

Marcel Dadi
In Paris the legend of Django is alive. I don't know if it's the same in the USA, but here we have many places where you can go and listen to some good Django-type music. A lot of Gypsies are maintaining the tradition of his playing - you may have heard of the Ferre family. The influence of Django on guitarists today is the biggest I have ever encountered. A lot of his albums are available in Europe, and he is one of the first influences on the beginner. Here in France you're not considered a good guitarist if you don't play "Nuages" and "Minor Swing." That may be ridiculous, but it's the evident sign of a big popularity among the French audience. Django is the mentor of thousands of guitar players, and I know that the biggest names in guitar have all been influenced by him. Personally, Chet Atkins is my biggest influence (along with Merle Travis), and even if I have not been directly submitted to Django's music, Chet has taught me everything about the Gypsy. If you find this strange, just listen again to Chet's earliest recordings.
Of course, I have many of Django's albums at home and play them often. My dream is to play and improvise like he used to. But I have made up my mind, and I'll keep on picking with my thumb and fingers. Recently, though, I have found the way to make my dream come true: I have discovered a then, sixteen year-old guitarist who can play for you any of Django's tunes! He, too, is a Gypsy, and his name is Raphael Fays. But the great thing is that he doesn't copy; if you ask him to play a song ten times he won't play it the same twice. He can find unlimited ways to play the same tune. Raphael Fays

Lineage

Henri 'Lousson' Reinhardt- Baumgartner (1928-1992). Django's first son was  is a much less well known personality. Lousson was born to Django's first wife, Florine "Bella" Mayer but Django had already separated from Bella before his birth. It appears Django was not at all involved in Lousson's upbringing and since the latter remained a nomadic, somewhat unsociable individual all his life, there is very little information available about him.
One cannot help but feel that Django's apparent indifference to Lousson contrasts dramatically with his obvious devotion to Babik.
Like Babik, Django's second and more famous son, Lousson was also an excellent guitarist.
Since Lousson was older he actually played with his father on occasions and even accompanied him on numerous recordings in the 1940s.
Like many of the second generation players, Lousson played more contemporary styles of jazz on an archtop electric guitar. Despite Lousson's modern bebop approach, his Gypsy heritage is evident in his technique, repertoire, and sense of aesthetics.

http://www.djangobooks.com/archives/Lousson.mp3
With this largely unsung talent Lousson never recorded commercially as this excerpt reflects..

Babik Reinhardt Guitarist (1944-2001)
While the son of a famous gypsy guitarist, Babik was 9 years old when his father died. Babik was not playing at the time and consequently learned nothing of the guitar from Django. He was of course given a guitar by his mother, Naguine and took lessons from his various and numerous uncles, cousins and those claiming to be related.
Few musicians stuck with as much smoothness to be themselves, while remaining attentive with the last evolutions of the jazz and by preserving something of the major sonority of large Manouche. Many django-fans adulate pale copiers of Django whereas they do not realize that they had there, with Babik “the” guitarist manouche of exception.
 
David Reinhardt Guitar
Born on December 23, 1986, David does not seem disturbed by the task which falls on to him: to transmit the heritage and to continue the family road! technique very at the point, lyricism and emotion, direction of the swing, here are obvious qualities of this young musician.
Already accustomed prestigious scenes (as of the 6 years age it played with Babik Reinhardt, his father) it begins a very promising career today, taken care of tenderly by the celestial four:
Django, Joseph, Lousson and Babik

Mail jazzmaster@jazzeddie.f2s.com with questions or comments about the format of this web site.
Last modified: 25/04/2008