PAUL VERNON CHESTER

Manouche Maestro

Django - Grande Manouche Gypsy

Here we have selection of pictures from Django's travelling Life as a itinerant gypsy musician when he would return to his wanderlust and commune with Nature.

No matter how much Django frequented Non-Roma, no matter how expensive his hotel rooms – sometimes he even stayed right at the Champs Elysées -, he always returned to his caravan, in short, he always was a member of the Roma, or – how the group calls itself – the Manouche.

In many Romani dialects this term signifies "human" and its members are close relatives of the Sinti. Both groups have considerable differences to other Roma groups in common, but the Roma are one whole as far as common culture, language (Romanes), traditions, values and professions are concerned, a whole that has been native to the European continent for centuries.

The Manouches almost certainly come from the most ancient of Romany Stock.  They arrived in Western Europe between the 15th and 16th century; and they chose France, The Netherlands and Germany as their permanent homes.  The name Manus, deriving from the Indo-European language group, proves their Indian origin. This term Manouches entered the French current language and according to the Sanskrit vocabulary it derives from Manusa: humane being

The Wanderlust
Every now and then Django would drop out of circulation for a while by going off on a visit to see his old friends. He never accounted for his movements to anyone – not even his partner Stéphane Grappelli, who once declared of his alter ego’s vagabond nature: "Spring is my worst enemy!" Gypsy roving aside, Reinhardt and Grappelli went on to form a star double act, guitar and violin fusing together as if they were the most natural combination in the world.

Django at a Gypsy Wedding circa 1943 Circled l-to-r Pie Fouad, Django, Eugène Vées, Sarane Ferret, Huber Rostaing. - Joseph Reinhardt immediately right of Fouad Emmanuel Soudieux on bass behind the newly wed couple

The Manouche mainly settle in the French-speaking and the adjacent Flemish-Dutch area, that is France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Contrary to other groups of Roma they are still to a large extent itinerant, which is even more notable as their equally itinerant Sinti "brothers" have been murdered almost completely, and as travelling about was prevented in the communist countries of Central and Easter Europe by brutal reprisals.
 

He himself did not attach great value to his origins. On tour, during breaks, while playing billiards, he probably was French. When talking at home to his parents, or when he had difficulties in expressing himself in French when talking to intellectuals, he might have felt a Rom. Now how did he feel when he held his guitar fretboard in the left, and his plectrum in the right hand?

Django - Bread, Cheese & Pickle?                        Joseph going Home

As the Scots would say - here's tae us wha's like us! Joseph and Django

Django’s Personality

Those character traits that were praised in public life, were cursed by many in private life. Living the life of a Bohemian was part of being an artist, for that it was not necessary to be a Rom. Still, improvisation is difficult for those who are accustomed to certain rules. For the audience, his fellow musicians, the organizers – in a small, remote club or in New York’s famous Carnegie Hall – who expected him at eight, and he arrived at nine. Or instead of him, a so-called cousin. Or he arrives, only to disappear again from the stage shortly after. To a game of cards, to friends, to making music. According to Hubert Rostaing, the best way to hear Django Reinhardt was to wait after the concert on the other side of the street – there you could probably hear him. Also later, artistic events played an important role for him. During a tour of the United Stated, he suddenly demanded to play together with Dizzy Gillespie, not wanting to hear that the latter was living at quite a distance.

Also his family had reason to complain. Already at an early age, his mother had to wait for him at the concert’s exit, in order to secure the family’s fee. We do not know how Django’s wife dealt with this later on.

Django with infant Babik posing at the door of his caravan

Babik drifts from his Tarzan comic to take an interest in the fretboard and choose a string and a note.
Note the temporary step - Naguine in the background?  Did Django really drive and tow that Caravan? Mon Dieu he never held a Driver's Licence
There are pictures of him seated at the wheel of a car.

In 1938 Django bought an American Buick and Hired an English chauffeur to drive it at the princley sum of 1000 Fr per month the equivalent of a French Cabinet Ministers salary at the time - after some exposure to Gypsy Camp wars he left for England.

Django’s youth takes place in the Manouche's holy sphere, the family circle. He got his first insight into the world of the Gadže through the teenagers who danced on the occasion of the Musette – balls in the 1920's, where gypsies were in demand. Hungarians, Romanians or Manouche, that did not make any difference. Even if he had contact with immigrated Roma, it is not clear which language they used to communicate. The immigrants probably spoke little French, and also the Manouche’s Romanes was strange to them.

Tarzan comic discarded in favour of the Selmer Macca - Babik takes a chord lesson from the Maestro -
Stimer Pickup still attached

The Musician.
Django was self taught, he never read music and learnt to play as a street musician in Paris.  The accordian player Jean Vissade, with whom Django made his first recordings as an accompanist, said of Django, I've found him almost too good, we were worried he would steal the limelight from us".
 

He once played for the great classical guitarist Andres Segovia who asked him where he could get hold of the score for the music. Django replied, laughing, that he had just improvised the whole thing.
 
At a jam in the nightclub "Chez Florence", Django, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter and Bill Coleman had a competition to see who could play "I won't dance" in the most keys. One by one they left the stage to leave Django to soak up the applause.
Django played a whole season at St John de Luz with only 4 strings and a piece from a comb as a plectrum. He'd been out on the road for many weeks and hadn't managed to buy the special Argentinian steel strings he needed for his Maccaferri guitar. 

In a review in the journal "Jazz Hot" of a concert with Django and Dizzy Gillespie in 1953 Jean-Louis Scali wrote:"Right at the start Django broke a string, but that just made us wonder what he needed it for, his solo just got better and better".

A quote from Alex Combelle who played with Django in the thirties: "What was unusual about Django was that he couldn't play out of tune or stumble in any way. Music came naturally to him. The right notes and the right chords seemed to fall beneath his fingers in a perfectly natural way".

Django with artistic Bust - not the same suit - note the 'scratchplate' on the Guitar

A sombre pose with open ground in the backdrop.

More amused by the Photographer outside his caravan situated in a built up Suburb.

Oscar Aleman
"I knew Django Reinhardt well. He used to say jazz was gipsy - we often argued over that. I agree with many Americans I met in France who said he played very well but with too many gipsy tricks. He had very good technique for both hands, or rather one hand and a pick, because he always played with a pick. Not me, I play with my fingers. There are things you can't do with a pick - you can't strike the treble with two fingers and play something else on the bass string. - But I admired him and he was my friend. He was my greatest friend in France. We played together many times, just for ourselves. I used to go to his wagon, where he lived. I've slept and eaten there - and also played! He had three or four guitars. Django never asked anyone to go to his wagon, but he made an exception with me. I appreciated him, and I believe the feeling was mutual".

This was typical of Django who when not playing before audiences enjoyed the carefree traditional Gypsy life. This included whiling away the hours in small talk with his extended family, playing billiards, fishing and driving along country roads. In 1949, after his career had entered a slump (partly the outcome of critics' anger at his Carnegie Hall lateness), he sold his Paris apartment, bought a Lincoln, attached a trailer to it, and headed out to the open roads of France. Eventually he hooked up with a larger caravan that included his mother, who lived in an old Citroën that had been converted into a van. From his camps in the countryside, he'd venture into Paris for occasional gigs, always making sure to take some money from a fat wad of banknotes that he kept under his pillow. Male Gypsies exist in a timeless macho continuum in which obligations and appointments are largely meaningless.

Street Musette performance with what appears to be a re-cycled gramophone horn employed as a megaphone for the Chanteuse

Django plays boules

Reading and Writing:
Django was unable to read or write, he attended school for one day.  As he couldn't read the metro signs, he always took a taxi in Paris.
Grappelli taught him to write his name so that he could have a proper signature on his contracts instead of a cross.
He was too proud to admit that he couldn't read, on one occasion, whilst looking at a contract for a tour of England he pointed at the paper and said, îm not keen on this clause hereî. It turned out that this point was where it was agreed that the arranger would meet all the quintettes expenses.

Jealousy and Pride:
Before the Quintettes first radio broadcast in 1937, recorded by CBS in Paris and sent 'coast to coast' in the USA, the studio host made the mistake of introducing the quintette as 'Stephane Grappelli and his Hot Four'. Django was furious and got up with the intention of leaving the studio, only after major apologies and a garauntee that the error would be corrected later in the broadcast, could Django be persuaded to return. Even so, Django didn't speak to Grappelli or the rest of the Quintette for weeks.

 

Idealised Train Compartment Encounter with Amplified Django, Sax, Vibes and Drums

Money:
Django was a passionate gambler and could often be found in the nearest casino. Money meant little to him even though he was one of the highest paid jazz musicians in Europe. Drummer Pierre Fouad recalls seeing Django lose between 300,000 and 500,000 francs at poker. Another time, when the Quintette were playing in Nice he was proud that he had won 345,000 Francs in the casino. He neglected however to mention that he then lost 365,000 the next day.
When he was to tour with Duke Ellington he demanded the same payment that Errol Flynn had received for his last film.

Django's Banjo

- claimed as a 6 string guitar banjo but the full picture of young Django booted and suited with a 'Banjo Guitar'shows an 8 Tuner head

This instrument is the Portuguese banjo and comes in different sizes and with different number of strings (often with different names, like viola banjo / banjolim / banjola / banjo de acordes.

There are banjos of cavaquinho size with 4 strings, or 4 double strings as a kind of mandolin, etc. They are all used for folk music.

Guitar Banjo

The guitar banjo is a hybrid instrument : a combination of a banjo-body with a guitar-neck, with 6 guitar-strings. Other names for it are banjitar and guitjo.
Note that the name 6-string banjo is also used for a 5-string banjo with an extra string (see under).

The banjitar is tuned and played like a normal guitar (but sounds much louder !).

Some exist even as a 12-string version, and some have a kind of guitar-body (with a hole for the round banjo-head !).

For years this has been one of the most popular banjo for guitar players, as it makes the sound of the banjo, but can be played like a normal guitar.

6 string Zither Banjo

William Temlett, one of England's earliest banjo makers, who opened his shop in London in 1846 and sold banjos with closed backs and up to 7 strings and marketed these as "zither" Banjos from his 1869 patent.  A Zither banjo usually has a closed back and sides with the drum body (usually metal) and skin tensioning system suspended inside the wooden rim/back, the neck and string tailpiece was mounted on the wooden outer rim, the short string usually led through a tube in the neck so that the tuning peg could be mounted on the peg head. They were often made by builders who used guitar tuners that came in banks of three and so if 5 stringed had a redundant tuner.

Mail jazzmaster@jazzeddie.f2s.com with questions or comments about the format of this web site.
Last modified: 25/08/2010