More thorough Django Reinhardt biography in: Website Jazz Partout.
Jean Django Reinhardt was born in Liberchies, Belgium, in a wandering French Romani family on January 23, 1910. His father was musician and bandleader, capable of mastering many instruments, and his mother was dancer and acrobat. Django's first years were spent in large parts on the road, when the family toured between Belgium and North Africa. Django showed early interest especially in the stringed instruments: violin, banjo and guitar.
In the 1920s the Reinhardt family stayed mainly in Paris, were young Django started to gain reputation among musicians as an exceptionally talented banjoist. It wasn't, however, until 1928, that he was able to cut his first records, accompanying then-famous accordionists Jean Vaissade, Alexander and Marceau. Django's star was rising fast, and he received a proposition for joining Jack Hylton's British jazz band.
Django never got the opportunity to respond to Hylton, because his career and life almost came to an end in November 1928 in an accident, in which his wagon burst on fire in the middle of the night. Django burned severely, and his left hand never healed completely: his ring and little fingers were permanently stuck to an unbending pair of hooks. It took almost two years of wilful re-education, but in the beginning of 1930s Django Reinhardt had miraculously taught himself a new playing style, full of strength and virtuosity. Banjo had given way to a more fashionable instrument, the guitar.
In the early thirties Django Reinhardt played and recorded for the most part with the Parisian swing musicians in the big orchestras led by violinist Michel Warlop and trombonist Guy Paquinet as well as in the band of the rising crooner Jean Sablon. In these engagements Django got better acquainted to another versatile virtuoso, Stéphane Grappelli.
In 1934 Django Reinhardt and violinist Stéphane Grappelli formed the revolutionary band, Le Quintette du Hot Club de France, with two rhythm guitars and a double bass. This band played hot swing in a completely original manner: there were no drums, piano or horns. The two rhythm guitars filled the role of drums and piano with an energetic pulse, while Django's and Grappelli's solos took care of the parts usually reserved for horns. The records of this magnificent combo have become widely imitated classics.
Paris of the era was a prominent international metropolis, where many great American jazz musicians played or even settled. The emerging of this thrilling hot jazz combo moreover added to its attractions: a growing number of visitors - among them Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Rex Steward, Barney Bigard and Dicky Wells - were eager to play with this mysterious Gypsy.
When the Second World War commenced, Grappelli stayed in London and Django made fundamental changes to the line-up: Hubert Rostaing's clarinet replaced Grappelli's violin and the second rhythm guitar was exchanged for drums. In addition to swing standards the band played Django's fresh compositions, like Nuages or Swing 42. Django also wrote new music to and performed with larger formations, even big bands. His popularity rose to unforeseen measures - he was the musical hero for both battling sides; his records sold enormously, his concerts were filled out and praising feature articles were published in the magazines.
In the rest of the 1940s after the end of the war Django varied between the all-strings quintet with Grappelli and the band consisting of drums and clarinet. In 1946 he first made a tour in the USA as a guest of Duke Ellington's orchestra and later played with Edmund Hall's band in a dance restaurant in New York. He wasn't at all satisfied with the overall outcome of his visit in America, and never returned there, although he later received some tempting propositions.
In the beginning of 1950s Django moved with his wife and son to a little village of Samois-sur-Seine near Fontainebleau, where he divided his time between music, fishing, billiard and painting. He had also again found a new direction to his music: in Paris he had started to play with young emerging musicians, who played modern jazz, bebop. Django amplified his guitar with a magnetic pick-up to match more easily to the volume produced by drums and trumpets and was once again the leading figure in French jazz circles.
In March and April 1953 Django Reinhardt cut his last recording sessions before passing away in May 15th. In 43 years he had created a completely original guitar style, given birth to a new genre of jazz music (Gypsy swing, jazz Manouche), taken part to nearly one thousand recordings and composed numerous future classics.
This page was last edited 2007-04-04
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