It is impossible to talk about jazz manouche (also called gypsy jazz) without first talking about the legendary guitarist Django Reinhardt. Along with violinist Stéphane Grappelli, Reinhardt formed the Paris-based Quintette du Hot Club de France in 1934. Django's playing put guitar on the map as a lead instrument in a jazz ensemble, and his compositions are still performed widely to this day.
Jean-Baptiste "Django" Reinhardt was born on January 23, 1910 in Liberchies, Pont-à-Celles in Belgium into a French manouche family. He was nicknamed in the Romani fashion, with Django meaning "I awake." The self-ascribed name of the French Sinti people is manouche, meaning "human being" in Romani. Although some would consider him French, and others might call him Belgian for his place of birth, Django moved around from place to place with his family in roulottes (caravans), and identified with this French manouche culture for his entire life.
From childhood, Django Reinhardt was drawn to music, playing violin and then banjo-guitar for much of his youth. He never learned to read or write music, but instead taught himself to play by mimicking what he saw and heard of other players. At age 17, he married Florine "Bella" Mayer in the Romani custom, by moving in together and living in their own wagon. Just as everything in his life seemed to be falling into place, and his musical career was kicking off, tragedy struck. One night in the autumn of 1928, he knocked over a candle in his wagon, which had been adorned with paper flowers made by his wife. The paper artwork quickly caught fire and he and his wife narrowly escaped death, managing to exit just in time, as their home burnt to the ground (read more on this here).
During an 18-month hospitalization, it became clear that his left hand and right leg would never be the same. Reinhardt refused amputation on the leg, working slowly back to being able to walk with the aid of a cane. However, the ring and little fingers of his left hand were left badly maimed, and for the rest of his life remained in a near-paralyzed claw-like position. It seemed that his guitar-playing days were at an end...
Fortunately, his cousins decided to bring him a guitar while he was still in recovery. No one knew what he would be able to do with just two working fingers and thumb on his left hand, but certainly no one expected him to reinvent the instrument and create an entirely new style of music. His dogged determination and love for the guitar fueled him in working to slowly re-learn the instrument, and his boundless creativity helped him to discover and perfect a new playing style, entirely his own. The chord voicings and soloing style that we now associate with jazz manouche are largely the result of this debilitating injury.
Following his rehabilitation, Reinhardt combined American jazz with the faster rhythmic playing of Romani traditions (more on this here), incorporating new chord shapes and other techniques in order to accomplish complex chromatic runs and arpeggios with impeccable accuracy. Django borrowed from every tradition that appealed to him, including French musette and latin Flamenco styles, as well as classical music. Although he only lived to age 43, he left behind a wealth of compositions and recordings...
A SELECTION OF DJANGO REINHARDT'S COMPOSITIONS:
- J'Attendrai (Live 1945)
- Nuages
- Minor Swing
- Manoir de mes Rêves (WDR big band performance)
- Beyond The Sea / La Mer
- St Louis Blues
- Honeysuckle Rose (with the Duke Ellington Orchestra)
Before Django Reinhardt, the guitar was seen as an accompanist's instrument in jazz contexts, for playing chords and rhythm. As a guitar soloist, his right hand technique and specially-designed guitar allowed him to step into the spotlight even in the context of a quintette. Django played the guitar as a lead melody instrument, with inimitable improvisations that even the greatest jazz musicians of the day couldn't help but admire (read more on this here).
Django Reinhardt popularized a certain style of guitar and plectrum, ideally suited to his style of melodic soloing. For a pick, he preferred a heavier and harder tortoise shell plectrum, allowing for a loud, bell-like tone. The guitar he preferred most of all was one designed by Mario Maccaferri, who had approached the Selmer company of Paris with ideas for a guitar that could be played in larger concert halls and arenas (video on this topic here). This guitar featured a wider raised body, a wider and longer neck, an internal resonator, a floating bridge, a metal tail-piece, a cutaway for better access to higher frets, as well as an extended fretboard.
Starting with a large D-shaped sound hole (or grande bouche) on the Selmer Modéle Orchestra, later iterations of this guitar design would come to have a much smaller, oval mouth (or petite bouche), designed for a louder and brighter tone on the Modéle Jazz. After only 20 years, Selmer closed up shop, having produced just under a thousand guitars in that time. Django preferred this later model (see Django's Selmer 503 here) and lighter gauge strings, which further improved the ease of playing many notes in short succession.
However, Django never fully fit into the professional life of a performing musician and composer. When offered a stable job at Les Acacias for 100 francs a night, he decided instead to journey south with his brother Joseph "Nin-Nin" Reinhardt, finding musical gigs along the way to support themselves in the fashion they were more accustomed to. The manouche lifestyle was one of independence and freedom, rather than one of luxury and obsession over finances. It was during this period of wandering that he happened to meet Stéphane Grappelli, at Le Croix du Sud. Together, they formed the backbone of what would become a world-famous quintette, performing what's known as swing or hot club jazz. Grapelli's legato and elegant violin playing was a stark contrast to the frenetic and rhythmic playing of Django Reinhardt. Together, they toured for a number of years, up until the nazi occupation of France during WWII, which interrupted their UK tour.
Django returned home to Paris, while Grapelli chose to remain in London for the duration of the war. The nazi occupation was not kind to Romani people, or jazz musicians in general. Over half of all Romani people in Europe were rounded up and killed between 1939 and 1945. Somehow Reinhardt's fame and the wide appeal of his playing allowed him to win over even some of the nazis. Many Germans turned a blind eye and allowed Django to continue performing throughout the war, even protecting him on the occasion of his capture during an escape attempt. During this period of time, Django composed "Rhythme Futur," "Swing 42," and "Nuages." French jazz became almost symbolic of the resistance against nazi German occupation, and "Nuages" became an anthem of this resistance.
Following the war, Django Reinhardt embarked upon his one and only tour of the United States. He performed as a guest soloist with Duke Ellington and his Orchestra in the autumn of 1946. Because he had learnt to play entirely by ear and intuition, and because his native language was not English, much of the language around music was lost on him. Django was not literate, musically or otherwise, and so the other musicians found it difficult to collaborate with him. What's more, he'd left his trusty Selmer Modèle Jazz back home in France, and played on a borrowed electric guitar. He left, frustrated by much of the experience.
Upon his return to France, he did not seem quite the same. He would show up to a gig without his instrument or amplifier, or might decide to spontaneously walk to the beach or go to smell the dew instead of play for a sold-out concert. In 1951, he retired from the city life to Samois-sur-Seine, although he continued to play the jazz clubs in Paris, and continued pressing himself to explore new avenues of musicianship.
Django certainly seemed to thrive on adversity, and was constantly looking for new challenges to set himself, and new styles of music to explore. He began playing electric guitar, using a pickup fitted to his Selmer. He had also begun to incorporate more bebop and modern jazz into his melodic style, and had made some forays into larger compositions for big band and orchestra. Unfortunately, all these projects and ambitions were cut short in the spring of 1953, when at the age of 43 he suffered a brain hemorrhage and passed away.
Django Reinhardt changed the world's understanding of jazz guitar forever. He not only brought jazz into Romani culture, but brought the music of the manouche people to the global stage. As his two fingers could roam freely across the fretboard, giving flight to his imagination, so too did he roam freely and never allowed himself to be tied down to any particular place or way of being. Never predictable or dependable, but always wildly creative and free. The legacy of Django continues to inspire many musicians today, both those in and outside of the jazz manouche world.
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