Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelly
Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelly, ’With The Quintet Of The Hot Club Of France’. An Ace of Clubs compilation from 1964. Reinhardt and Grappelly, guitar and violin respectively, formed the Hot Club Quintet in 1934, playing Paris jazz clubs. Their USP was having all stringed instruments in a jazz band ‘orchestra’. And, in Django, they had a certified genius player. A Romani gypsy, Django almost burnt to death in a caravan, survived with burns all over his body and two fingers effectively lost on his left hand. A gifted guitarist before the accident, he reinvented the rule book to play post-accident with the two fingers left. Incroyable! His adapted chord shapes and picking style along with his speed and precision, with a rhythm hand that was fast and tight or slow and loose, whether straight strum or lovely little arpeggios, made him a major influence on every guitarist ever since. The Original Guitar Hero. Grappelly on violin was no shirker either.
World War 2 ended the band, but Django played in Paris all through the war. Being a Gypsy and a jazz musician were two good reasons to send him to the camps, with about a million other gipsies, but such was his popularity across the board that he survived. Most of these recordings are just before war broke out.
They play a sweet, happy, swinging, jazzy confection with Gypsy blood at its heart. Cole Porter’s ‘Night & Day’ has fast guitar runs and precision sharp picking on the melody from Django, smooth flow from Stephane on violin. ‘Liza’ happy swing and fluid rhythmic bounce from Django. ‘HCQ Strut’ jaunty melody and bended notes. ‘Nuages’ was the signature theme with easy shuffle, graceful violin, and delicately picked guitar and little runs up and down the neck.
It’s all good. Your new favourite Sunday morning music…
Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelly
Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelly, ’With The Quintet Of The Hot Club Of France’. An Ace of Clubs compilation from 1964. Reinhardt and Grappelly, guitar and violin respectively, formed the Hot Club Quintet in 1934, playing Paris jazz clubs. Their USP was having all stringed instruments in a jazz band ‘orchestra’. And, in Django, they had a certified genius player. A Romani gypsy, Django almost burnt to death in a caravan, survived with burns all over his body and two fingers effectively lost on his left hand. A gifted guitarist before the accident, he reinvented the rule book to play post-accident with the two fingers left. Incroyable! His adapted chord shapes and picking style along with his speed and precision, with a rhythm hand that was fast and tight or slow and loose, whether straight strum or lovely little arpeggios, made him a major influence on every guitarist ever since. The Original Guitar Hero. Grappelly on violin was no shirker either.
World War 2 ended the band, but Django played in Paris all through the war. Being a Gypsy and a jazz musician were two good reasons to send him to the camps, with about a million other gipsies, but such was his popularity across the board that he survived. Most of these recordings are just before war broke out.
They play a sweet, happy, swinging, jazzy confection with Gypsy blood at its heart. Cole Porter’s ‘Night & Day’ has fast guitar runs and precision sharp picking on the melody from Django, smooth flow from Stephane on violin. ‘Liza’ happy swing and fluid rhythmic bounce from Django. ‘HCQ Strut’ jaunty melody and bended notes. ‘Nuages’ was the signature theme with easy shuffle, graceful violin, and delicately picked guitar and little runs up and down the neck.
It’s all good. Your new favourite Sunday morning music…