 France with their Quintet. Although these two geniuses of the guitar never recorded together, they became friends.
Oscar relocated to Buenos Aires in the early 1940s and continued to record and perform with both a swing quintet and a nine piece orchestra. He continued to teach and perform until his death in 1980 at age 71.
In Paris during the 1920s many of the dance hall musicians were gypsies. They traveled most of central Europe without allegiance to any particular country. Some remained nomadic and some settled in and around were they could find work. They brought many musical influences with them and infused the regional popular music with their own styles. String and wind style playing included influences from Russia, Italy, Belgium, Spain, and the Middle East as well as the Balkans.
Jean Baptiste “Django” Reinhardt 1910–1953
Jazz Manouche (Gypsy Jazz) is said to have begun with the nomadic Gypsy guitarists between Belgium and France in the late 1920s. Many of them were employed by Auverge-style bal musette ensembles that supplied music for public dances.
Django Reinhardt was born on January 24th, 1910 at Liberchies Belgium in an open Gypsy camp. At the age of 8, his mother’s Manouche tribe settled near the belt of fortifications that surrounded the old Paris near the Choisy gate. He never wore a suit or lived in a real house until he was 20 years old. The Manouches were a world unto themselves, medieval in their beliefs and distrustful of modern science. Django grew up in this world of contradictions; one foot in the urban world of Paris and the other in the medieval life of the nomadic gypsy.
Music surrounded the Gypsy community; it was part of everyday life. At age 12 Django received a banjo-guitar from a neighbor who noticed his interest in music. He quickly learned to play. Before he turned 13 he had begun a musical career by playing with popular accordionist Guerino at a dance hall on the Rue Monge. He went on to play with numerous other bands and musicians and made his first recordings with accordionist Jean Vaissade for the Ideal Company. Since Django could not read or write, his name was spelled: “Jiango Renard” on these records.
The Caravan Fire
Django married young, as was the custom, to Naguine, another Manouche tribe member. On November 2nd, 1928 at one o’clock in the morning, the 18 year old Django returned to his caravan from a night of playing music at a new club “La Java”. Naguine was pregnant with their 1st child and asleep inside. The caravan was filled with celluloid flowers his wife had made to sell at the market. The highly flammable celluloid flowers caught fire by a candle accident. Django wrapped himself in a blanket to shield him from the flames. Somehow he and his wife made it across the blazing room to safety outside, but his left hand and his right side from knee to waist were badly burned. His fret hand was so badly burned that he only retained use of his forefinger and middle finger. The rest were useless.
Django was bedridden for 18 months. With great determination Django recreated a way to use the two functioning fingers on his left hand. The affected fingers were permanently curled towards the palm due to the tendons shrinking from the heat of the fire. He could use them on the first two strings of the guitar for chords and octaves but full extension was impossible.
Django, like Oscar Aleman, was exposed to recordings of Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. By reinterpreting the American jazz and combining it with the wealth of Gypsy tradition and current dance hall influences, Django elevated Jazz Manouche to a wildly popular new dance music form.
In 1934 Django met a classically trained violin player who was equally enamored with the work of Eddie Lange and Joe Venuti: Stephane Grapelli. This was what Django had been looking for and together they assembled The Quintet of the Hot Club of France. The original lineup was Django (lead guitar), Stéphane (violin), Roger Chaput (rhythm guitar), Louis Vola (bass) and Django’s brother Joseph (rhythm guitar). Ultr