Django Reinhardt – King of Gypsy Jazz

Jean “Django” Reinhardt, born January 23, 1910, died May 16, 1953, was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer.

Born into a family of Romani gypsies Reinhardt invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique (sometimes called ‘hot’ jazz guitar) that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture. With violinist Stéphane Grappelli, he co-founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France, described by critic Thom Jurek as “one of the most original bands in the history of recorded jazz.” Reinhardt’s most popular compositions have become jazz standards, including “Minor Swing”, “Daphne”, “Belleville”, “Djangology”, “Swing ’42” and “Nuages”.

At the age of 18, Reinhardt was injured in a fire that ravaged the caravan he shared with his wife. While his family and neighbors were quick to pull him to safety, he received first- and second-degree burns over half his body. His right leg was paralyzed and the third and fourth fingers of his left hand were badly burned. Doctors believed that he would never play guitar again and intended to amputate one of his legs. Reinhardt refused to have the surgery and left the hospital after a short time; he was able to walk within a year with the aid of a cane.

His brother Joseph Reinhardt, an accomplished guitarist himself, bought Django a new guitar. With rehabilitation and practice he relearned his craft in a completely new way, even as his third and fourth fingers remained partially paralyzed. He played all of his guitar solos with only two fingers, and used the two injured digits only for chord work.

The period between 1929 and 1933 were formative years for Reinhardt. He discovered Jazz. He was particularly impressed with Louis Armstrong, whom he called “my brother”. Shortly afterward he made the acquaintance of a young violinist with very similar musical interests — Stéphane Grappelli. In the absence of paid work in their radical new music, the two would jam together, along with a loose circle of other musicians.

In 1934, Reinhardt and Parisian violinist Grappelli were invited to form the “Quintette du Hot Club de France” with Reinhardt’s brother Joseph and Roger Chaput on guitar, and Louis Vola on bass. Occasionally Chaput was replaced by Reinhardt’s best friend and fellow Gypsy Pierre “Baro” Ferret. They also used their guitars for percussive sounds, as they had no true percussion section. The Quintette du Hot Club de France was one of the few well-known jazz ensembles composed only of string instruments.

Reinhardt also played and recorded with many American jazz musicians such as Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Rex Stewart (who later stayed in Paris), and a jam-session and radio performance with Louis Armstrong. Later in his career he played with Dizzy Gillespie in France. Reinhardt and the Hot Club of France used the Selmer Maccaferri, the first commercially available guitars with a cutaway and later with an aluminium-reinforced neck.

When World War II broke out, the original quintet was on tour in the United Kingdom. Reinhardt returned to Paris at once, leaving his wife behind. Grappelli remained in the United Kingdom for the duration of the war. Reinhardt reformed the quintet, with Hubert Rostaing on clarinet replacing Grappelli’s violin.

Reinhardt survived the war unscathed, unlike many Romanis who perished in the Porajmos, the Nazi regime’s systematic murder of several hundred thousand European Romanis. He was well aware of the dangers he and his family faced, and made several unsuccessful attempts to escape occupied France. Part of the explanation of his survival is that he enjoyed the protection of (surreptitiously) Jazz-loving Nazis such as Luftwaffe officer Dietrich Schulz-Köhn, nicknamed “Doktor Jazz”.

After the war, Reinhardt rejoined Grappelli in the UK, and then went on in fall 1946 to tour the United States as a special guest soloist with Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, when he got to play with many notable musicians and composers such as Maury Deutsch. At the end of the tour he played two nights at Carnegie Hall; he received a great ovation and took six curtain calls on the first night. Despite Reinhardt’s great pride in touring with Ellington (one of his two letters to Grappelli relates this excitement), he was not really integrated into the band, playing only a few tunes at the end of the show, backed by Ellington, with no special arrangements written personally for him.

After returning to France, Reinhardt spent the remainder of his days re-immersed in Romani life, having found it difficult to adjust to the modern world. He would sometimes show up for concerts without a guitar or amp, or wander off to the park or beach, and on a few occasions he refused even to get out of bed. Reinhardt was known by his band, fans, and managers to be extremely unpredictable. He would often skip sold-out concerts to simply “walk to the beach” or “smell the dew”.

In 1951, he retired to Samois-sur-Seine, near Fontainebleau, where he lived until his death. He continued to play in Paris jazz clubs and began playing electric guitar, despite his initial hesitation towards the instrument. His final recordings made in the last few months of his life show him moving in a new musical direction; he had assimilated the vocabulary of bebop and fused it with his own melodic style.

While walking from the Avon train station after playing in a Paris club he collapsed outside his house from a brain hemorrhage. It was a Saturday and it took a full day for a doctor to arrive and Reinhardt was declared dead on arrival at the hospital in Fontainebleau at age 43.

Rare film of Django from 1939, notice his crippled left hand. He picks out the notes with two fingers.

Django’s legacy, modern day musicians pay tribute using all their fingers to get the same notes in same amount of musical time.

This article was originally published at MMA on January 23, 2011. It is being republished due to increased interest.

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