Lately I've been enchanted with the lyrical genius of Django Reinhardt (1910-1953), the Belgian Gypsy jazz guitarist who, with his friend, the brilliant violinist Stephane Grapelli, and their group, the Quintette du Hot Club de France, brought a European sophistication to American jazz and blues numbers. Guitars often aren't thought of as "jazz instruments" in the way the clarinet, sax, and piano are, but Reinhardt's acrobatic and effervescent playing was perfect for the fresh, improvisatory, and exuberant genre. No lesser icons than Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, and Benny Goodman recognized his talent, and later musicians as varied as Jimi Hendrix and Jackson Browne have acknowleged their artistic debt to him.
That Reinhardt (left)could play at all was something of a miracle. He was born in 1910 to a Gypsy family living in Belgium. His family was musical and he grew up playing the violin and guitar, but when he was 18, a terrible fire left him with a severely damaged leg (the doctors wanted to amputate but he wouldn't let them) and two partially paralyzed and fused fingers on his left hand. With great courage and perseverance, he reinvented his playing style, using only his two good fingers and his thumb to create complicated chord and tab sequences. (Anyone who plays the guitar will know how difficult this is – even a basic F major chord usually requires all four fingers.) He was illiterate until he was a grown man (Stephane Grapelli taught him to read between sets), and he never learned to read or write music properly.
Reinhardt and Grapelli formed the Quintette du Hot Club de France in Paris in 1934; besides the enormous talent of its members, it was unusual in that it was composed of only string instruments: violin, guitars, and double-bass. Percussion was provided by the bass and the guitars. This gave them a distinctive sound that is still fresh 75 years later.
Reinhardt spent WWII in Paris, surviving when most ethnic Gypsies did not probably because a Nazi officer who was stationed there and loved his music kept him from being deported. (On top of Reinhardt's Gypsy heritage, jazz was considered by the Third Reich to be "degenerate" and was outlawed.)
After the war, Reinhardt toured on and off, notably with Duke Ellington, but he was never comfortable with the new popularity of electric jazz guitar and frequently showed up to gigs sans amplifier with only his acoustic instrument. Also, his behavior became erratic – he would disappear for days and weeks at a time — and so his career suffered. In May 1953, he died suddenly of a stroke. He was only 43.
The irony is, of course, that one of the most brilliant interpreters of this quintessentially American music was a man from Europe. There are only a few video clips of Reinhardt's playing, but this piece of film give a clear, albeit very brief, view of his unique fingering technique: