Django Reinhardt - One of the alltime great guitar players

He was an amazing guitar player. Before Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnston and a host of others became known as innovators on the guitar, Django was known throughout Europe. He played in all styles - in fact, he invented the styles. There are hundreds of recordings available and I defy anyone to say just what genre he was residing in... ok, it was kind of jazz, lots of improv... but, there is blues, there is gypsy (he was Roma), there is classical, there is just so much... and his virtuosity. Plus, he was missing the use of several of his fingers ...!

He played and recorded a lot with another unbelievable great, Stephane Grappelli, violinist - who stands tall in his own right.

Listen and enjoy.

Here is some background from Winamp.com:

Django Reinhardt was the first hugely influential jazz figure to emerge from Europe. A free-spirited gypsy, Reinhardt wasn’t the most reliable person in the world, frequently wandering off into the countryside on a whim. Yet Reinhardt came up with a unique way of propelling the humble acoustic guitar into the front line of a jazz combo in the days before amplification became widespread. He would spin joyous, arcing, marvelously inflected solos above the thrumming base of two rhythm guitars and a bass, with Stephane Grappelli’s elegantly gliding violin serving as the perfect foil. His harmonic concepts were startling for their time -- making a direct impression upon Charlie Christian and Les Paul, among others -- and he was an energizing rhythm guitarist behind Grappelli, pushing their groups into a higher gear.

Not only did Reinhardt put his stamp upon jazz, his string band music also had an impact upon the parallel development of Western swing, which eventually fed into the wellspring of what is now called country music. Although he could not read music, with Grappelli and on his own, Reinhardt composed several winsome, highly original tunes like "Daphne," "Nuages" and "Manoir de Mes Reves," as well as mad swingers like "Minor Swing" and the ode to his record abel of the ’30s, "Stomping at Decca." As the late Ralph Gleason said about Django’s recordings, "They were European and they were French and they were still jazz."

A violinist first and a guitarist later, Jean Baptiste "Django" Reinhardt grew up in a gypsy camp near Paris where he absorbed the gypsy strain into his music. A disastrous caravan fire in 1928 badly burned his left hand, depriving him of the use of the fourth and fifth fingers, but the resourceful Reinhardt figured out a novel fingering system to get around the problem that probably accounts for some of the originality of his style.

According to one story, during his recovery period, Reinhardt was introduced to American jazz when he found a 78 RPM disc of Louis Armstrong’s "Dallas Blues" at an Orleans flea market. He then resumed his career playing in Parisian cafes until one day in 1934 when Hot Club chief Pierre Nourry proposed the idea of an all-string band to Reinhardt and Grappelli. Thus was born the Quintet of the Hot Club of France, which quickly became an international draw thanks to a long, splendid series of Ultraphone, Decca and HMV recordings.

In 1946, Reinhardt took up the electric guitar and toured America as a soloist with the Duke Ellington band. Starting in Jan. 1946, Reinhardt and Grappelli held several sporadic reunions where the bop influences are more subtly integrated into the old, still-fizzing swing format. In the 1950s, Reinhardt became more reclusive, remaining in Europe, playing and recording now and then until his death from a stroke in 1953.

His Hot Club recordings from the `30s are his most irresistible legacy; their spirit and sound can be felt in current groups like Holland’s Rosenberg Trio. ~ Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide



YouTube Blue Drag - Django Reinhardt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5ahaXnO_tE