PAUL VERNON CHESTER

Manouche Maestro
 

Gypsy Jazz (Manouche Swing) as inspired by

Jean Baptiste 'Django' Reinhardt (1910-1953)

Profile of Django Reinhardt

Django's Fret Hand - On November 2nd, 1928 an event took place that would forever change Django's life. At one o'clock in the morning the 18 year old Django returned from a night of playing music at a new club "La Java" to the caravan that was now the home of himself and his new wife. The caravan was filled with celluloid flowers his wife had made to sell at the market on the following day. Django upon hearing what he thought was a mouse among the flowers bent down with a candle to look. The wick from the candle fell into the highly flammable celluloid flowers and the caravan was almost instantly transformed into a raging inferno. Django wrapped himself in a blanket to shield him from the flames. Somehow he and his wife made it across the blazing room to safety outside, but his left hand, and his right side from knee to waist were badly burned.
Initially doctors wanted to amputate his leg but Django refused. He was moved to a nursing home where the care was so good his leg was saved. Django was bedridden for eighteen months. During this time he was given a guitar, and with great determination Django created a whole new fingering system built around the two fingers on his left hand that had full mobility. His fourth and fifth digits of the left hand were permanently curled towards the palm due to the tendons shrinking from the heat of the fire. He could use them on the first two strings of the guitar for chords and octaves but complete extension of these fingers was impossible. His soloing was all done with the index and middle fingers! Film clips of Django show his technique to be graceful and precise, almost defying belief.

Django's name means- 'I Awake'

QDHCDF

Louis Vola, the bass player with the original Quintette Du Hot Club De France, an affable, Maurice Chevalier type of man, he talks glibly of his fifteen-year old granddaughter who plays the piano and can relate many tales about Django. He really knew Django the longest, starting at Toulon, where Vola had a band. He heard the two gypsy brothers, Django and Joseph playing on the beach one night and invited them to jam after hours with some of the members of his band. One member of note was Stephane Grappelli. Vola subsequently moved to the Palm Beach Hotel at Cannes and hired Django alone, as an accompanist for his own accordion. Later, when Vola switched to bass, he hired Eugene 'Nanine' Vees, Joseph Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli, in addition to Django - thus the Quintette Du Hot Club De France was born. Shortly after it was started on its recording career by Charles Delaunay and Pierre Nourry.

Jo Privat and Gus Viseur Accordionists accompanied Django Reinhardt.

About Django
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!”

Django was explosively egotistical, a careless and carefree gambler, but a generous charmer as well. Musically, he was gifted in a way that seldom has been seen before or since his classic recordings were made.

Born into a troupe of gypsies in Belgium and raised outside Paris, this son of a travelling entertainer was working professionally at the age of 12.

At 18, an event marked him, and his career, for life: a caravan fire that robbed him of the use of two of his fretting fingers. While tragic, it forced him to develop a style of playing that was his alone.

Intensely rhythmic, remarkably nimble even for a musician with full capacity, Django in later years developed into a soloist who played with an emotional fervour and romanticism that is common in the folk music of his ancestry.

Colin Cosimini has been playing Gypsy Jazz Guitar for over 20 years.

He is of Italian Gypsy descent, but born in the UK. He learnt his craft by touring the capitals of Europe playing with the Gypsy guitarists at their local haunts and studying their work to obtain that unique sound.

Hi Eddie, I have two tours in the UK this year with Manouche guitarists, first the end of June with Matcho Winterstein, and September with Moreno, I will get back to you with the exact dates!

Moreno

http://www.gauloisbrothers.co.uk/

DjangoFolllies

Tchavalo Schmitt exponent of Manouche, French Gypsy Jazz.

Jimmy Rosenberg

Django's Forgotten Era

TRIVIA

The Allman Brothers Band instrumental Jessica was written by guitarist Dickie Betts in tribute to Reinhardt. He wanted to write a
song that could be played using only two fingers.

Mail jazzmaster@jazzeddie.f2s.com with questions or comments about the format of this web site.
Last modified: 01/02/2010