Miles Davis must have sat under an apple tree. The great trumpeter probably discerned that if it worked for Sir Isaac Newton, then it should work for him. What we use as fiber, Davis employed to open his eyes to understanding music in its most unfiltered sense. We could argue that the discovery of gravity far outweighed the progression of jazz. But seriously, what sounds more appealing -- falling on your knee, thanks to gravity, or a sultry horn?

Like Newton, the jazz giants looked underneath the surface to find the answer. The greats could slice the belly of a note and show all the complexities inside. Their instrument deciphered each layer, giving the note a facelift. Once the note was mastered, the beat was next on the dissecting table. Divine beings like Thelonious Monk and Billie Holiday balked at straight up cadences. They ignored the traditional drill sergeants and set into their own step. Around, behind, in front, wherever there was something missing, the great ones could caulk. They rearranged the chemical compounds of the mundane and replaced the stale air with a joyous sound.

I’m sure that by now every other person (including me) has discussed Ken Burn’s “Jazz”.

“Oh my Gawd, you haven’t watched it?”

“I didn’t know that Jelly Roll Morton was a pimp!”

“Do you think they’ll do anything on Kenny G.?”

I personally soaked in every hour of it. It’s fascinating to know that many of my jazz heroes have stories that make Hollywood look like “Dick and Jane.” I also have come to learn the magnitude of their musical explorations. “Magellans” like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong were among the first to instill pride in an oppressed black race. Jazz was even used during the Depression to make everyone forget the economic desert. It enlightened and it gave hope.

Nineteen hours for one program is generous. Burns has obviously been vigilant in his research and the entertainment value is apex. However, there are a few musicians that slipped through the cracks. (The final two-hour episode crammed in 1960 to the present). Jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt is one of them.
Django hailed from France and was unknown to most of the world even after his death. That’s quite a shame, because Reinhardt had that innate ability to seduce a note and work it into his own bed of rhythms.

Reinhardt deserves recognition because he was a deviant of the highest order. No beat or note was sacred. One of Reinhardt’s masterpieces that should be in rotation with “Love Supreme” and “Monk’s Blues” is “Le Quintette Du Hot Club De France,” featuring Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli (Charly Records).

Reinhardt had a mold all his own. His nimble fingers could produce sounds never ushered before out of a guitar. His understanding of the instrument put him in a league of one -- himself. To this day, jazz guitarists credit Reinhardt as perhaps the greatest plucker of all time. Reinhardt probably didn’t rise to deity status because he was not in the U.S. He was part of a large gypsy clan that resided in France. The prodigy was far away from the hot sounds that were bubbling in jazz-obsessed America in the late 1920s and 1930s.

A fiery fate one evening became a harsh learning experience. Reinhardt was playing a gig at a club called “La Java,” where he was spotted by British bandleader/impresario Jack Hylton. The bandleader was floored by Django’s performance and immediately contracted the performer for a British tour. He was headed for obvious stardom when tragedy dipped in for a hello. Django’s caravan caught ablaze while he was asleep. He and his wife managed to escape but not before Django badly burned his body. He was bed-ridden for 18 months as he learned to walk again.

After becoming mobile, Django had to develop a new method of playing guitar. His left hand had been badly burned, leaving his third and fourth finger deformed and useless. Using the good fingers of his left hand, Django developed an ingenious method of playing that is still copied by starry-eyed newbies. His popularity began to rise again in the 1930s. Paris was the European capital of jazz and attracted Americans like Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter and Bill Coleman. Reinhardt’s band was the hottest of them all, attracting the likes of Cole Porter and the Prince of Wales.

WWII was a dangerous time for Reinhardt (a gypsy jazz musician was an open bullseye to the Nazis), but he continued to elicit “wows” wherever he went. A solo tour to the U.S. in 1946 included a series of concerts with the Duke Ellington Orchestra (if anyone knows how to get these recordings, drop me an e-mail!).

By the end of the 1940s, Django began to don the shell of a hermit. Work was getting tougher to find, and he believed that his level of music was not understood. He rented a small chalet and spent his final years with his wife and son. In May 1953, he died from a stroke in a hospital. The finger genius was 43. The greats knew who he was. The man had understood the kinetics of jazz, and his brain lit a spark that has now flamed around the world.

Perhaps Django’s greatest performances were with Stephane Grappelli, a violinist who could understand the “mathematical” notes that Reinhardt created. Born in Paris in 1900, Grappelli was the son of an Italian philosophy professor. He gave up piano lessons to concentrate on the violin. He studied harmony and theory at the Paris Conservatoire, which lent to his improv leanings. He was in a Latin dance band, Gregor and the Gregorians, which practiced their improvisational skills at silent movie theatres.

One night, Reinhardt was at the Hotel Claridge for a performance with the Louis Vola band. In between sets, Django began to play backstage with the young Grappelli, whose band doubled with Vola’s. Vola saw the combustible energy between the two and suggested that they form a band. The Quintette du Hot Club de France would change the way jazz was perceived.

A listen to this two-disc set is like giving your ear a valuable history lesson. Reinhardt booted stodgy traditions and got rid of the piano and drums. The guitarist felt like it took away from his own rhythm playing. He would use bass, rhythm guitars, and clarinets as a landscape for the sizzling duels between him and Grappelli.

In most jazz lineups, a horn seems to dominate the musical conversations. One could argue that a brass sound would run the poor little string minstrels out of the building. Not so with Reinhardt. His guitar met every challenge. It seems at times like his guitar is barking at the other instruments to hurry the hell up. His licks have a sweet quality that almost any brass musician would crave. Insert Grappelli’s violin and a juke joint (European style) could turn into one molten place.

The usual formula for each tune on this two-disc wonder is for Reinhardt to take the lead. Django’s little journey up and down the fret board is enough to pop off the head of any unwary listener.

This little clinic is usually greeted by Grappellis’s piercing violin that seems to be ready to take the guitarist head-on. I like to think of it as a duel, but a more accurate description would be a friendly banter between two highly talkative beings.

From the get-go, this album is high octane. “Dinah” and “Tiger Rag” showcase a raw ability that will never be matched. Reinhardt and Grappelli had that intuitiveness that many music shamans preach to this day -- it’s not what you play as much as what you don’t play. These first two tunes showcase the musicians’ skill at knowing when to bow out and then slide back into the instrumental fray with a tranquil discipline.

Reinhardt also tipped his hat to many of the U.S. musicians who made jazz a hot commodity around the globe. Duke Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing” and “Solitude” are given a serious workout on this album. George Gershwin’s “The Man I Love” and “Embraceable You” are turned into hip-shaking ventures. I have one of those silly little dreams that if Gershwin had seen his own music done by this gypsy guru, he would have signed all his life’s work to Reinhardt.

“Swing With Django” and “Appel Indirect” are original tunes by the guitarist and violinist. These are jazz masterpieces that still weather time. The latter song is a great map for anyone curious enough to venture into new jazz territory. Django starts the tune like he’s trying to shake the devil off his path. The beats become a moot point as Reinhardt delivers his own rhythm. All of the sudden, Grappelli wanders into the battlefield and becomes conjoined with the hot sounds. For three minutes, the listener will be subjected to sounds that hearken the intensity of a New York rush hour.

Warning: Buy this album only if you’re ready for new mental possibilities. The unprepared may find themselves in a brain vice that’s permanently locked.

Mass marketing can be a curse for many musicians who are trying to create an honest conversation through their instrument. However, discovering these wonderful sounds in a record antiquary, a friend’s home, or by the celluloid musings of PBS, is a much more rewarding experience than the doctrine of Billboard. Django Reinhardt was one of those individuals who stayed on the periphery of jazz greatness. His music seemed to say, “Yeah, I know I’m good, but it’s so much more fun being out here.”
Exploration always has to go on inside the individual. It’s not for mass opinion because rewards are inward. Too bad there’s not an apple tree for everyone.

 

Back to Top

The Smoky Mountain News