Django Recollections

Django Biography / Recollections & Quotes

1. Django Biography

2. A Django Reinhardt Concert

3. Stephane Grappelli - "For a few seconds I am back with Django"

4. Johnny Smith Remembers Django

5. Djangos Ancient Playmates - By Fred R Sharp

6. Django's Epiphone Guitar - By Fred Sharp

7. Quotes

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Jean Baptiste (Django) Reinhardt 1910-1953 - Guitarist/Composer born to gypsy parents in Belgium.

Though he never attended a day of school - he could barely write his name - he possessed the qualities of a prince and the gifts of a genius. At the age of 18 he lost the use of two fingers on his left hand when he was severely burned in a fire. As a result of this accident, he devised an entirely new approach to the guitar, creating a voice for the instrument that is unsurpassed, even today.

In 1934, Django Reinhardt burst onto the European music scene with the sounds of the Quintet of the Hot Club of France, which featured violinist Stephane Grappelli. By 1939, he was recognised throughout the world as the greatest jazz guitarist. In 1940, Django entered what was to be nearly a decade and a half of prolific composition, strengthened by a supreme level of improvisation, tragically halted only by his untimely death.

Recordings with various ensembles, ranging from solos and quintets to big bands and symphonic orchestras, enabled him to present his works in unique surroundings, with the virtuosity of a Louis Armstrong and the creativity of a Duke Ellington. The changing styles of the music world from the 1930s through the 1950s are all in evidence within the swinging, often romantic sounds of Django Reinhardt.

1934-1939

The creation of the QHCF was a direct result of the Hot Club of Frances search for an all-French musical group to represent their organisation. This small society of French jazz enthusiasts was spearheaded by Hugues Panassie and then nurtured by Charles Delaunay. Primarily, they entertained themselves by playing and studying imported American jazz records, but in an effort to increase their activities they began to promote jazz concerts. Initially drawing from the visiting American musicians and then the modest but growing school of French jazz players, they presented their first concert in May of 1933.

Django Reinhardt had come to the attention of the society in the spring of 1933, and it was in that winter that he began to be featured at their concerts. In mid1934, while backstage during a performance at an afternoon tea-dance, Django and Stephane Grappelli (whom he met at the end of 1931) began to improvise on the jazz standards of the day such as Dinah, Lady Be Good, and Tiger Rag. These impromptu sessions grew into a daily practice (with three-acoustic guitars, bass and violin) and led to the making of an audition record in September 1934.

In December, this ensemble recorded its first sides for the Ultraphone Company and officially donned the title -The Quintet of the Hot Club of France.

The Reinhardt Legacy is a collection of diverse, often outstanding recordings, comprised of instrumentations from solo guitar to symphonic orchestra (don't forget his 1942 violin solos and his use of the amplified guitar). But the populace feels most comfortable when listening to Django in the all-string QHW setting.

Over one hundred sides were recorded by the QHCF from 1934 through 1939; thirty-seven of them Reinhardt/Grappelli originals, plus nine of Django's solo improvisations. On these records, the music world first heard this unique-sounding unit and marvelled at the gifts of its two illustrious soloists.

The QHCF made three tours of England, various junkets over the European continent, and a tour of Spain with saxophone great Benny Carter. Individually and collectively they recorded and performed with the greatest American jazz artists visiting Paris at the time-Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Eddie South, Larry Adler, Rex Stewart, Barney Bigard, Bill Coleman and Dicky Wells.

This 1930s era, with its swinging, often fiery brand of jazz driven by the QHCF, rightfully deserves the title-Le Jazz Hot.

1940-1946

September 1939 was an important month for Django Reinhardt. It meant the departure of Stephane Grappelli and the arrival of the Second World War.

For six years Django had performed and recorded with the all-string version of the QHCF, now he wanted a change.

The first was a new rhythm section, one with more colour and a lighter but more pronounced rhythmic pulse. Second, a replacement was needed for the departed violin. Within one year, not only would Django accomplish this, but he would soon enter his most creative musical period, culminated by a flow of public acceptance unlike any he had experienced before or would thereafter.

He began by replacing one of the acoustic guitars with drums, still maintaining the light sound of one acoustic guitar for rhythm as opposed to a heavier sounding piano. Then he replaced the violin with a clarinet, sometimes two clarinets. These changes brought new dimension and a more relaxed swinging feeling to his music. This unit was to become the most popular and recognised jazz band in Europe throughout the war.

The compositions from 1940 through 1943, some twenty two, are his most revealing - rich in harmony and melody, they captured and still retain the many moods of Django.

In 1944-45 Django recorded infrequently and performed as he pleased. As the war drew to a close, scores of guitarists and American soldiers would wonder the Paris streets in search of the amazing gypsy. December 1944 found Django recording with American jazz artists from Glenn Miller's Army-Air Force band, including Mel Powell, Peanuts Hucko and Bernie Privin. Later in 1945, recordings and concerts with the American Transport Command Orchestra (with Lonnie Wilfong's wonderful big band arrangements of Django's tunes) insured Django's star status until the war's end.

Once the war had ended, Django was free to tour England. This resulted in his joyous reunion with Stephane Grappelli. In the January 31 and February 1, 1946 session for Swing and Decca, we find a partnership rekindled, now older and more mature, overflowing with joy and driven by collective genius.

1947-1949

1945 brought a new sound into the music world, along with some new faces: Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Their many years of experimenting, searching for new ways to take jazz a step beyond the prevailing swing patterns and rhythms, started its course at Minton's Playhouse in Harlem and fought its way downtown to 52nd Street-Swing Street.

These two men almost single-handedly revolutionised music, and their thunder could not help but be felt and heard on all shores by all ears. Enter bebop.

It wasn't until after the war that bebop music was to have its effect upon those European subjects willing to accept a new voice.

From his first days, Django had big-ears. He could hear, absorb, and then incorporate a new sound into his own musical vocabulary instantly, But with bebop it was different. Bebop presented a whole new path to follow. It was not moulded in the Louis Armstrong Tradition-The Swing Tradition-and it took him a little longer to collect and then organise this different, often dissonant structure.

Do not fear though. In 1951 Django once again emerges, brimming with life and filled with fire, this time at the helm of a new quintet with a young, cocky breed of musicians, schooled in the Gillespie/Parker tradition.

DJANGO AND THE AMPLIFIED GUITAR

Due to the efforts of Duke Ellington in October 1946, Django made his first and only appearance in the U.S, (Oct. 1946-Jan. 1947). Ellington, who first met Reinhardt in 1939, was anxious to have Django return to the States with him then, but the outbreak of war prevented this. It wasn't until seven years later that the fabulous gypsy arrived in N.YC. and performed a series of concerts as a guest soloist with the Ellington Orchestra.

Not having brought his trusty Selmer guitar from Europe, Django was forced to use an American Gibson amplified guitar. Recordings made during a concert in Chicago reveal Django to be quite at home with the instrument, even utilising the sustaining power which the amplified guitar possesses.

For recordings and appearances from 1947 through 1950, Django performed intermittently on the amplified guitar, opting at times to use his acoustic instrument. It wasn't until 1951 that he exclusively played his amplified instrument (the Selmer with a pickup), using this voice to express his "new" ideas and repertoire in the 1950s world of modern-jazz.

Also during this four-year span, we find Django teaming up once again with his co-patriot Stephane Grappelli, reviving the all-string QHCR This transition period produced some very interesting performances and a handful of swinging new compositions.

Many of the "modernists" constructed tunes upon the harmonic progressions of I Got Rhythm and the standard twelve bar blues. It is no wonder that seven of the twelve compositions (a total of twenty were composed from 1947-49) incorporated these two chord patterns.

Cadillac Slim, Danse Nuptiale, Festival 48, Double Scotch, and Micro (Mike) are all descendants of the harmonies (with some variations) George Gershwin used for I Got Rhythm, while melodically these lines show the influence bebop music had on Django. Just For Fun and Blues Clair (1947) are twelve bar blues featuring extended solos by Django.

1951-1953

In 1949 and 1950, Django found it hard to secure work in his native France. Being a forty-year-old veteran swing player, he was presumed not "with" the times. So he worked for a while in Italy. How disheartened our hero felt, now that he was no longer the talk of Paris.

It must have been in the latter part of 1950 that time brought its elements of good fate to play on Django. Six months later, in Feb. 1951, he appeared at the Club St. Germain in Paris, leading a Quintet comprised of the most promising French "modernists". With Django once more guiding the way, the youngsters performed his new "modern" repertoire. Often challenged by their adventurous, sometimes awkward solos, Django remained a step ahead, amazing them with his powerful improvisations and breathtaking command of the guitar.

The material from these last three years is some of the finest he conceived throughout his twenty-year career but sadly the least known.

Anouman is classic modern ballad writing, while Fleche D'Or, Impromptu and Nuits de St. Germaine des Pres are high voltage examples of Gypsy gone bop. On March 10^th 1953, just over two months before he died, Django entered the recording studio and produced some of his finest sides, possibly his greatest! The eight titles of which Blues For Ike is one, are the culmination of a lifetime affair with sound and music. Django successfully spanned the 1930's, 40's and 50's eras of popular music and jazz, keeping up with the rapidly changing music world while constantly developing the improvisational skills he so naturally possessed.

This biography serves as an introduction to the book Django Reinhardt Anthology which contains 60+ Django Reinhardt compositions / transcriptions. Published by the Goodman Group.

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A Django Reinhardt Concert

In the December 1976 edition of Guitar Magazine Charlie Scott shared this story with the readers:

It's the year 1938 - the date, Monday, July the 4th. The place - the Ardwick Hippodrome, Manchester. From behind the curtains comes the sound of a guitar - Appel Direct; backed, a moment later by a solid tramping but lifting beat, and the resonant biting attack of a fiercely rhythmic violin. As the curtains swing open a roar of applause surges from the audience - drowns the music for a brief moment - and subsides as the jazz aficionados of Lancashire settle down to hear the music of their idol.

There he sits, against the contrasting background of the elegant, slim, white-jacketted standing figure of the violinist Stephane Grappelly. dress trousers hoisted carelessly up to reveal a bare calf above the top of a sock; feet clad in what looks like his street boots. The legend has come to life.

The first number finishes in a roar of adulation. You think: Applaud, clap until your hands are sore. He MUST play again, before we wake up and the dream dissolves. Nonchalantly Django acknowledges the plaudit with a wry, half-smile, and sweeps into another number - Limehouse Blues this time, lifted along by the solid four-in-a-bar of the two other guitars and the deep rubbery thump of the plucked bass. The violin plays the first chorus 'straight', with a cool and dispassionate, almost Oriental, tone, followed by an incredible Grappelly virtuoso improvisation - and then it's Django again! Chromatic runs bubble up from the base and stream up, unbroken, through three octaves. Still we can't believe it. Rumour has it that two fingers of his left hand were paralysed and distorted by fire yet with the two remaining fingers he produces music which would defy the efforts of a many-handed maestro.

A slow number now - Moonglow - with an introduction of falling cadences of augmented chords. Remember! Up to this time the guitar enthusiasts of the 1930's - a rather misunderstood and oppressed minority - had received the records of Django with near disbelief, accompanied as they were by fragmentary and conflicting rumours about the elusive genius: 'Only TWO fingers? -The records are speeded up in recording' . . .

Chorus follows chorus in a rising tide of excitement and at the end of their act, curtain after curtain, and repeated encores until finally the elated crowd pour out into the dusk of a summer evening.

A few of us went backstage one morning after rehearsals to meet Django Reinhardt in person (I recall the faces of Terry Usher, John (then Jack) Duarte, Peter Sloan and other Manchester early guitar stalwarts). Django spoke no English and we but a little, bad schoolboy French. Stephane Grappelly did the honours and conveyed our congratulations, enthusiasms and questions.

'How did he do that long chromatic run in his record of Some of these days? His left hand did something between the nut and the 15th fret - and the faultless, smooth, scale rippled from his guitar. We looked puzzled. Again he obliged - but sadly we realised we were none the wiser - we never would be!

Could we have an autograph? Laboriously (and proudly) he scrawled 'D. Reinhardt' (sic) THREE times on my programme.

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In a corner of the room the plump, swarthy and jovial figure of Madame Reinhardt sat, measuring us up with a slight sardonic smile, as if secretly amused that these mad English boys should so obviously worship her Django. Out on stage, in the theatre, an act had just finished a band call rehearsal and the orchestra played a few desultory bars of the National Anthem. An impish smile flitted across the round swarthy face as Django's fingers danced over the strings in a deliberately corny little syncopated caricature of the staid tune.

I don't remember how, or when, we left, but I shall always have with me the memory of when I saw Django, and his innate sense of fun shining out in that little intimate musical joke.

Charlie Scott

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Stephane Grappelli - "For a few seconds I am back again with Django"

Interview with Stephane Grappelli - 1973:
You know, in my opinion, the guitar and violin are the two best instruments together; they complement each other exactly. One of the greatest examples of this is the music of Joe Venuti and that marvellous guitarist Eddie Lang. Django Reinhardt certainly had heard these players on record, and when he learned that I was playing some jazz on the violin, he came to listen.
At that time jazz on the violin was such a novelty that I was constantly getting in to trouble with the management because customers complained that I was playing out of tune. But I stuck to it because I believed in what I was doing.
Although I had never met Django, I seemed to remember him playing the banjo-guitar in the Bal-Musette. Anyway, one night in 1931, when I was playing in a club in Montparnasse, I saw this dark face staring at me very intently. I can tell you it made me nervous - I thought he was a gangster who didn't like my music. But it was Reinhardt of course. After some time he came over and asked me to play a jazz tune, and later we had sonic conversation about jazz and about Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti. Django was very enthusiastic about us playing together and so we arranged to meet.
I met him somewhere - I forget now and as he had his guitar with him we started to play to amuse ourselves. For myself I can say that we hit it together perfectly, and I was amazed that he could do the things he did with that injured left hand. And not only that, but he was the most marvellous improviser I had ever heard.
I didn't see Django again until we met in the same band in the Hotel Claridge two years later. During the break when another band came on to play tangos, our musicians used to go behind the stage, and as time went on Django and I used the break to do our own tunes. One day his brother was in the neighbourhood and he joined us with his guitar on rhythm.
Our great chance came when a friend of mine Pierre Nourry encouraged us to do a concert. He arranged the concert and invited two famous critics Charles Delaunay and Hughes Panassie. Django and I decided to add a bass and another rhythm guitar to the group, so we were now Django Reinhardt, Joseph Reinhardt, Roger Chaput, guitars, myself on violin, and Louis Vola, bass.
The concert was a fabulous success. Everybody went mad and Pierre Nourry was very pleased and excited. He persuaded a man who had just founded a recording company called Ultraphone to take a chance and record us. He agreed, but we had to do it for nothing. That was the first time I made a record with Django and also it was the first record of the Quintette du Hot Club de France.
In those days there weren't any tape recorders, they used to use sort of wax pancakes which were kept in the 'fridge, and if you made a mistake the record was ruined. So, we had four of these pancakes to make the record with and we played I Saw Stars. We missed nothing so we went on to do Lady Be Good, Tiger Rag and Dinah. We were amazed that we didn't make any mistakes in spite of the fact that Django was a bit late for the recording. The recording company was so impressed that we signed a contract for more recordings, and after a while everybody wanted to record us.
Despite his having to play mainly with just two fingers, Django didn't have any limitations; he could do anything. I was never nervous with him. I could go and play anywhere with him, because immediately he began to play, he put me in such ambience. You know when you have the jitters, sometimes your fingers refuse to work. It's inexplicable: it may only last a fraction of a second. I can't understand it myself, why now sometimes I'm nervous and sometimes I'm not. But with Django, I was never nervous. His first note was so fantastic, he put me in such a mood that I forgot the audience.
Django always played well and he never made a mistake, even when he was ill. I knew three men in my life who couldn't make a mistake; Django Reinhardt, Art Tatum, and that French pianist Martial Solal they're the kind of men who never made a mistake. You know, there are two sorts of mistakes. There is the mistake that comes from one's physical condition. Then there is the other called bad taste. Django never made the second type of mistake. He may make a mistake once a year, suppose his health wasn't good, or perhaps his guitar was out of order.
Django never looked after his guitar. He didn't care about it when he'd finished playing it; he'd just put it in a corner and it was his brother who would carry it around. Sometimes if there was nobody to carry it he would take it himself, but he never bothered to cover it. Oh, he used to play it when it was in a dreadful state sometimes; even broken and yet. . .
Django was helped a lot by the nature of his physique. His wrist was double the size of mine, his fingers much longer; and he was terribly strong. I remember Django changed his guitars several times because after about six months the fingerboards used to have holes in them. That shows you the strength he had!
Yet in spite of being a strong man, Django was always suffering from something. Maybe it was his teeth, or his feet. And he must have suffered a lot with headaches, but he would never follow any advice about his health. Especially he wouldn't go near a doctor. Of course when he was ill, it would effect all of us. One day we might be recording and Django has toothache and if at that moment he feels the accompaniment is a bit out, or a bass note played accidentally wrong, he would be furious and he would correct the tempo in such a marked manner that I used to be afraid that a listener to the record would notice it. This in turn would make me nervous and then affect my playing also. Fortunately this didn't happen often.
Django was always concerned about the chord accompaniment. He just couldn't understand that anybody could make mistakes. Especially annoying to him was a wrong note in the bass. To him, a wrong bass note was an insult and he was often so rude to the bass player that they would leave, and so I was obliged many times to look for new bass players.
Once we got a new one who was a bit pretentious for our liking. Whenever Django asked if he knew such and such a tune, this bass player always said, 'Of course! What do you think, I've been playing for twenty years?' One day Django got fed up with this sort of thing and suddenly asked, 'Do you know Cherokee?' 'Of course!' came the answer. 'Well come on then', and off Django went at a terrific speed and in B major! That was Django. But sometimes we had some poor chap who was struggling to keep up, and Django would realise it and I would say, 'He's a bit nervous, don't take any notice.' And that man could play any old kind of bass and Django never said a word. You see, he was very temperamental, but inside he was a very kind man, and sometimes he didn't realise that he was upsetting people.
People often ask me if Django practised. Oh no, not Django; he was born with that technique. In my opinion we can compare him with that other phenomenon Paganini. By the music he left behind one can tell that Paganini must have been a fantastic player. I think Django was about the same degree a phenomenon. I remember one day he really let me down, I didn't know where he was and when he came back four months later, he assured me he hadn't touched the guitar - he'd lost it. That same night he played like a God. I had never heard anybody play the guitar like that; and after four months inactivity. I said, 'How can you do it? If I stop playing the violin for one week I can't play'. 'Oh, I don't know', he said. He never knew, it was always 'I don't know'. Anyway, he was so pleased to get back to his guitar and he was so amazed at his re-awakening that he didn't stop playing all that night. But of course his fingers were injured and they were bleeding. He'd go running up those very sharp strings so fast that he hurt himself, but he didn't take any notice. He used to play the guitar with the fingers sometimes, instead of the plectrum, and he liked the Spanish guitar. I remember us being invited to a party by a titled lady who used to delight in giving parties and inviting among her guests two people who were absolutely the opposite both in conception and tastes. This particular evening it was the turn of Andres Segovia and Django Reinhardt. So of course Django arrived three hours late, and without a guitar. Segovia was there, naturally at the right time and he'd played his repertoire. Everybody was upset because of Django and finally he arrived with a lovely smile, thinking it was okay. We said, 'Where have you been ? You're three hours late'. 'Oh, I didn't know'. Because Django never knows the time. He goes by the sun. 'Django, now it's your turn to play something'. But of course he had forgotten his guitar and Segovia doesn't want to lend him his, so someone has to rush off in a taxi to find some old box somewhere. And there you are; Django played solo guitar with a plectrum and then his fingers and he produced such a fantastic sound and improvisations that Segovia was amazed and asked, 'Where can I get that music?' Django laughed and replied 'Nowhere, I've just composed it!'
Django first heard an electric guitar in '46 or '47; I think it was at the Hackney Empire. Somebody brought in the guitar and it made a terrible noise - in those days electric guitars didn't sound as good as they do now. But Django was so impressed because at last he could play loudly. He played with such volume that I had to ask him to turn it down as it was drowning all of us. He was like a child with a new toy. Of course, to be fair, he didn't know how to handle it. We'd heard Charlie Christian, and although he would never play like Django, if you know what I mean - the electric guitar being easier than acoustic - Charlie Christian was a master of the electric guitar, Django was born to play acoustic guitar and the richness of Django was in his chords and he could never achieve the same dynamic effect that he could from his acoustic guitar. He never succeeded to play electric and in my opinion he never was a good electric guitarist.
I was in Florence when I heard about my old friend dying. And I didn't cry, like the man sitting in front of me at the time. It was too much of a shock for me, almost as if a great stone had fallen down on my head. I realised the meaning of it all a week later that I had lost my closest friend. But I must tell you and I've never told this to anybody. Django even dead is still with me, I am sure of that. It's not just that I feel his presence, but I feel that he protects me and inspires me to go on; because why, in my old age can I still not only play, but want to play more and more? The violin is never out of my hands and my fingers are as young as ever.
Playing with the Diz Disley trio is wonderful. Diz is the foremost player here who understands Reinhardt, and sometimes he produces that melodic line of Django's; not the same of course, because Diz has his own temperament too. Denny Wright also is a marvellous player, he's got such a good technique. Of course he can't produce Django's melodic line because Django invented it, but he has his own style, and on top of that he's got the strength of Django Reinhardt. In my opinion he's the only player in the world who can compare to Django and, you know, when I'm playing with Denny Wright and if I let my spirit go, then maybe I find that for a few seconds I'm back again with Django Reinhardt.

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Johnny Smith Remembers Django:

"A funny thing happened with Django. He was staying at the Hudson Hotel in Manhattan, and I would go up in the afternoon and we'd mess around together, or maybe I'd take him round the city. At this time Les Paul was at the Paramount Theatre so Django and I went down there to visit him in the afternoon. After that, Django invited me to join him at this club where he was working, the Cafe Society, up town and a real hoity-toity place. I didn't even have on a tie and he hadn't shaved, and I didn't want to go in but he insisted - I had to be his guest for dinner. So we go into this restaurant and the place was full of people in dinner clothes and looking immaculate. They put us at a table way over in the corner - I guess to get us out of the way. So we sat there and all of a sudden Django picked up his knife and started banging on the table. People started looking around because by now dishes were falling off the table, and waiters ran over to try to quieten him down. They spoke French, so finally we found out the reason for the commotion: he was insulted because all the other tables had a little glass vase with a flower in it and our table didn't. And he's just tore up the joint because that was an insult!

We played together, but really, I was just listening because I'd heard him on record and I idolised this man from when I was younger. I'd save up my nickles and as soon as a new record came out I'd be right there. I used to play along with his solos and on the old record player they wouldn't last long and I'd wear them out, so I kept having to get new ones of the old ones too. He really made me realise that the guitar was a musical instrument and not just something to scrape on.

But I never heard him in his true surroundings, which would have been a French night club, and I'm sure he would have been better there than on record. I think Django was not comfortable in America with the people he was working with - it was all organised quickly. He played beautifully, but I'm sure that wasn't the true Django.

A short while ago I had a letter from Don Gibson, with whom I've done a couple of records. With the letter was a big newspaper write-up about how he had purchased Django's guitar and now he owns that Maccaferri guitar that Django used - all authenticated - and it's a really outstanding guitar."

Extracted from the feature on Johnny Smith in the August 1976 issue of "Guitar" magazine.

Djangos Ancient Playmates

By Fred R Sharp

At the time of writing this piece (the early 1970's) Fred Sharp, a noted Django authority, was leading a band in Cleveland, Ohio. He had, at that time, been in the music business for a number of years and had played and recorded with Red Norvo, PeeWee Russell, Muggsy Spanier, Miff Mole, Jack Teagarden and The Adrian Rollini Trio. On a tour of Europe he met with Django's son, Babik Reinhardt who presented him with the instrument that Django had played on his concert tour with Duke Ellington in 1946 (story below). Whilst in Paris Fred and Babik recorded together. Fred was one of Jim Hall's first teachers when Jim was 15 years old and they still correspond. Now retired and living in Florida, Fred still plays and has a son, Todd, who also plays guitar. Todd's CV includes a stint with rocker Rod Stewart.

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Fred R Sharp and Babik Reinhardt.

Much has been written about Django Reinhardt, his style, his virtuosity, his infirmity and his contribution to the world of jazz. The purpose of this writing is not to reiterate these things, but instead, to tell you of the whereabouts and what-abouts of some of the musicians and friends who were closely associated with him. On a recent trip to Paris and London, I interviewed some of these 'ancient playmates'.

Louis Vola, the bass player with the original Quintette Du Hot Club De France, is living in Paris and plays nightly at the Sheherazade. 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.

Gerard Levecque, clarinettist, is now living in a Paris suburb and writes original music and arranges for many French recording sessions and stage shows. He scored the 'Guitars Unlimited' album for Columbia, which is a re-mastering of solo Django with four guitars and a new rhythm section. He is very much in demand and is still employed full time in the music business. Gerard is quite perturbed, that the 'Voice of America' is no longer broadcasting late night jazz overseas. This writer is taking steps to see that this is restored. Gerard speaks both French and English, as does Louis Vola.

Emmanuel Sodieux, who played bass with the quintette in the later years, buzzed over to our meeting on a fine new French motorcycle. He runs his own radio and television sales and repair service now and plays music very little. As with the other musicians, he is still very much a follower of jazz. He is not at all fond of rock, as are some of the others, but this is only natural inasmuch as he is not in the music business and consequently he has not had occasion to play, listen and absorb the newer music.

Sodieux is the most 'French' looking Frenchman, with a maximum of Joi De Vivre, a ruddy, shining complexion and a presence that can be felt, as well as heard. He speaks only French, as does clarinettist Hubert Rostaing, who lives in a delightful decorator's dream Paris apartment on the Rue Artois. He now only records and mostly concert music at that. He is currently actively writing for French films and has two films playing in Paris at present. A confirmed chain smoker, his telephone never seems to stop ringing with new work assignments. When Stephane Grappelli left the quintette, Rostaing replaced him. He made many recordings with them and when he finally left, was replaced by the then eighteen year old Gerard Levecque. Gerard, by the way, was auditioned without his knowing it. He was invited to jam, backstage, at a club in which Django was playing. Rostaing had Django listening in the next room.

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Fred Sharp,with his wife Iris and Django's Epiphone (story below).

Joseph Reinhardt, Django's guitar playing brother, has recorded a new album recently, with the same instrumentation as the old quintette and is finally sharing some of his brother's glory. He plays extremely well, with a tone and a style akin to Django's, but more reserved. Maybe cautious is the better word here, because he plays shorter versions of Django's sweeping phrases. There is, however, a very definite 'gypsy' feel to his music.

Pierre Michelot, the final bass player in Django's lifetime, has been selected as the leading bassist by the readers Of JAZZ HOT since 1952. The jazz academy of Paris awarded him the Django Reinhardt Grand Prix of 1962. Michelot went with Lester Young and Miles Davis on the Birdland tour and also played the Blue Note in New York with Stan Getz and Chet Baker. At present and for the past few years he has been with the Jacques Loussier Trio, playing throughout the United States.

Stephane Grappelli, violin: It seems that Stephane is just starting his second career, for following his first success as a part of the Quintette Du Hot Club De France, he is now becoming even more famous as a freelance jazz violinist. Stephane is of Italian decent, living most of his life in France, but confided to me that he would really like to call London his home. He has three apartments, one in Paris, one in Chartres and one in London. It would be incorrect to say that Stephane merely recorded with a variety of musicians, for that could imply that he took a somewhat secondary role. This is by no means true for most of the musicians who have recorded with him, speak of it as one of the finest experiences of their lives. The list is long and includes Gary Burton, Barney Kessel, Kenny Clark, Yehudi Menuhin, Sven Asmussen, Joe Venuti, and many others. As a guitarist myself, I treasure the memory as one of my finest hours, when I played with him one night at the Paris Hilton Hotel. Grappelli recently made a tour of the U.S.A. with his own group, including Diz Disley on guitar. Disley was a friend of Django's and plays somewhat in the Django style.

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L to R: Emmanuel Sodieux, Gerard Levecque, Charles Delauney and Louis Vola

Concerning the gypsies that played with Django, such as Eugene Vees and Pierre Ferret, their whereabouts are relatively unknown - some are in the south. I tried to locate them, but the romantic gypsies are like butterflies; when the flower closes, they fly away. However a word about them is in order here. Most of them claim blood relationship with Django and some probably have. Most are guitarists and play in his style and it is unfortunate not to have more complete information on them.

A word now about Django's son Babik, 32 years old. He plays excellent guitar, with a flawless technique, but not in the Django style. After all, he was but nine years old when his father died. His playing is a mixture of George Benson and Wes Montgomery and needless to say, that's not bad.

This account would not be complete, without mention of the instrument that Django, and all members of the quintette, played. It was, in fact, a French Selmer-Maccaferri designed by Mario Maccaferri, a concert guitarist who developed an unusual instrument with an internal resonator - a kind of a guitar within a guitar. In company with some friends, he proffered his designed to Henry Selmer of Paris, who set up a plant to manufacture the instrument. Within a few years the Maccaferri became the most popular professional's guitar in Europe. Production on the instrument was halted in the late thirties and none have been made until last year, when Mario, aged 75, started producing an exact copy of the original, calling it the 'CSL Gypsy'. The guitar is now manufactured by Summerfield of England using the same rare rosewoods and spruces.

Lastly, the man who had the good sense and vision to 'give a damn' about all this, my very good friend of twenty years, Monsieur Charles Delaunay. Through his affiliation with Vogue Records in France, he is responsible for re-mastering and re-issuing much Django, drawing upon a lot, of material from his own immense private collection. -

Delaunay, author of HOT DISCOGRAPHY, has written many books on Django. This writer was privileged to make a contribution to 'Django Mon Frere' - and if anyone knew Django as intimately as a brother that person was certainly Charles. Besides Vogue Records, Delaunay also publishes the leading French jazz magazine JAZZ HOT.

A prolific writer, as well as an accomplished artist, the son of Sonya and Robert Delaunay, whose works hang in the Paris museum of modern art, the Stedelijk museum in Amsterdam, the Guggenheim museum in New York and the Philadelphia museum of art. Monsieur Delaunay has been invited by the United States government to visit Washington D.C. in September, 1976, to participate in the celebration of our bi-centennial year. For his part in the discographical perpetuation of jazz music, much of which is American in origin, he has been selected as an outstanding world authority, to read a paper at these festivities, along with other world notables in the field of art and science, who have strongly contributed to American and world culture.

So there you have it. Some artists have been left out I'm sure, but what has been written here was long overdue.

While Django Reinhardt is legend, all of the 'ancient playmates' mentioned and unmentioned, have also contributed to the legend of the two fingered French gypsy guitarist, who himself contributed enough to change the world of jazz music.

DJANGO's EPIPHONE GUITAR - by Fred Sharp

In 1967, the night before we left Paris, my wife Iris, Babik and I had dinner at Restaurant Lucas on Rue Des Petites Ecuries, which is now a jazz club called The New Morning. After dinner and hours of struggling through my poor French and his not speaking English at all, Babik asked, "Il est possible pour tu a apporter un cadeau, pour instance, un guitar a l'etas unis?" So he proceeded to open the boot of his car and give me Django's Epiphone. By the way, when we got to his car, there was a parking violation ticket on it, which I took off and gave to him. He said it was an old one and he put it there himself, so as not to get another where he was parked. We went back to London and I had friends of mine who ran an electronic representative firm pack the guitar like a piece of equipment for shipment to the United States and left it with them to be shipped.

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Fred Sharp,with his wife Iris and Django's Epiphone

When we returned to our home in Cleveland, Ohio there was no guitar. I waited three months and finally got around to checking the small U.S. Customs office at the Cleveland Airport. They said they had it for three months with no consignee address on it?? I proved it was mine and I asked about duty. They asked where in Europe it was made. I said it was an Epiphone and was manufactured in New York, to which they said, if it's American, there is no duty!! Anyhow, that's the long of it. When I had a good look at the guitar I noticed that the fingerboard was rosewood and very grooved and pitted from Django's apparently very heavy finger pressure. If you look at other photos of Django's guitars, you'll notice the heavy wear on the fingerboard. Also the frets were badly worn. Django's fix for worn grooved frets was to simply move the tailpiece over 1/16th of an inch, so the strings landed on an unused portion of the frets!! Right away, that sounds like a Gypsy FIX! The pick-guard was attached at the top next to the end of the fingerboard, but the other end had evidently lost it's support bracket. Django or someone had sawed a one inch thick piece of broomstick, to make a large round wooden washer, and screwed it to top of the guitar and the large end of the pick-guard to it! The neck was terribly warped, too much to even adjust with the truss rod. I didn't want to hang it on the wall, I wanted to play it, so I took the whole instrument apart, re-set the neck, planed the rosewood fingerboard, fitted new frets and two new mother of pearl square fingerboard inlays, did a cutaway on it, rebound the fingerboard , headpiece and body, fitted a second matching pickup with controls, sanded, fine sanded and re-lacquered the whole instrument. Following that, it was playable for the next few months, until the neck warped again and I put it to rest in its' case.

I met Ellington years ago and spent an hour with him talking about Django and after that, up until the time of his death, he sent me one of those large fold-out paper Christmas Cards unfolded to about 2 foot square. He always sent out his Xmas cards around June or July (avoid the Xmas rush??) so it was common to receive his card in the summer time. When he died, the newspapers made a story of this and said that Duke had a premonition of his death and sent out all his Xmas cards in July!!.

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