Music: Django Music

Django Reinhardt was sure everyone must have heard of him. Hadn’t jazz critics like France’s Hugues Panassié called him Europe’s leading jazz artist and the world’s greatest jazz guitarist? Django was so certain that he was famous in the U.S. that he left his guitar in France: U.S. guitar manufacturers would give him guitars and pay him for playing them. Last week, before he could go on stage in Cleveland’s Public Music Hall, he had to go out and borrow a guitar.

The concert manager, for one, had never heard of Django Reinhardt, so Django’s name didn’t even appear on the program (a Duke Ellington jazz concert).

But when the Duke introduced “the legendary Django” from the stage, there were surprised murmurs and loud applause from the audience—and even greater applause when Django finished with Tiger Rag and Honeysuckle Rose.

Swarthy Django Reinhardt, now 36, is an almost illiterate gypsy who was born in a roulotte (trailer) and only recently has succumbed to houses. As a boy he played gypsy music on the guitar and violin. When he was 19, he heard a record of Louis Armstrong’s Dallas Blues. Said he: “The rest of the orchestra—c’est mauvais, but Louis—il est formidable!” After listening to records by Armstrong, the Duke and Tommy Dorsey, he got together in 1935 with a hot fiddler named Stephane Grapelly, organized the Quintet of the Hot Club of France (three guitars, a violin and bass). Their records of U.S. jazz classics (Dinah; Lady, Be Good; My Melancholy Baby) are collectors’ items. Most guitars are strummed, but Django developed a one-finger picking style because his left hand was badly burned in a fire and became useless for chords.

Ellington first heard Django in 1939 in La Roulotte, Django’s cabaret in Paris’ Rue Pigalle. Last month the Duke paid Django’s airplane passage to the U.S. for a six-month visit (Django’s 250-lb. gypsy wife stayed behind).

They rehearsed only 20 minutes before their Cleveland performance. They talked in sign language and monosyllables, since Django understands hardly any English.

“Tiger Rag — number un,” the Duke said, holding up one finger. “First you play around . . . just a few riffs” (the Duke made guitar-strumming motions). “Then we give you a chord — wham, you go into Tiger by yourself and we start giving you the beat” (The Duke demonstrated on the piano.) “Understand?” Django grinned enthusiastically. They jammed for five minutes, until one by one the band boys left their cards, gossip and naps to gather around, shout encouragement: “Go to it, master. Yah, yah, yah.” Says Duke: “Django is all artist. Jazz isn’t exactly the word for it. Jazz was that raggedy music they used to play about 1920. Nowadays, jazz must be classified according to who’s playing it. I call Reinhardt’s playing Django music. He’s one of those musicians who is unable to play a note that’s not pretty or not in good taste. Sure he’s a great virtuoso.”