Setting the standard as a virtuoso jazz guitar player and composer Django (“I awake” in Romani) Reinhardt was born on 23 January 1910 and passed away on 16 May 1953. He was part of a Gypsy (Manouches) Romani family in Liberchies, Pont-à-Celles, Belgium. He lived in open-air “Romani encampments” near Paris, and never truly lived inside a house until the age of 20.
His family was full of musicians. At age 12 he started out playing banjo, guitar and violin, moved to a violin, and eventually settled down to playing a banjo guitar when it was given to him as a gift. The first recordings of Django are on the banjo.
I'll Have Mine Straight
During his first marriage at the tender age of 18, Django’s travelling caravan caught fire. He suffered 3rd degree burns and lost the use of two of his fingers. Although he was told he would never walk or play guitar ever again, within a year he was walking with a cane. With the help of his brother, Joseph Reinhardt, who bought him a new guitar, he was able to play, even though his third and fourth fingers were partially paralyzed.
The practicing helped him rehabilitate his hands and fingers back to where he could play again. In 1934 Reinhardt and Parisian violinist Grappelli formed the "Quintette du Hot Club de France". During this time he was also collaborating with American Jazz musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong.
When WWII broke out the quintet was on tour, but Reinhardt returned to Paris immediately. In 1943, Reinhardt married Sophie "Naguine" Ziegler in Salbris. They had a son, Babik Reinhardt, who also became a respected guitarist. After the war, Reinhardt rejoined Grappelli in the UK, and went on tour the United States in 1946 as a special guest soloist with Duke Ellington and His Orchestra.
Gripping Outlet
In his later years he emerged himself in the gypsy lifestyle and began to find it extremely challenging to function in the modern world. Although he had vowed to never play an electric guitar, Django’s music took on a new direction, perhaps based on the fact that he picked up that verboten electric guitar. He effortlessly assimilated the vocabulary of bebop and fused it with his own melodic style.
His life ended suddenly while walking from the Avon railway station after playing a club in Paris. He collapsed outside his house from a brain hemorrhage. Because it was a Saturday and it took a full day for a doctor to arrive. On May 16th of 1953, Reinhardt was declared dead on arrival at the hospital in Fontainebleau at age 43.
References
- www.pbs.org (http://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/artist_id_reinhardt_django.htm)
- www.allmusic.com (http://www.allmusic.com/artist/django-reinhardt-p7407/biography)
Ingrid Calderon - Guilty of contributing Jazz and Rock 'n' Roll articles for Muzikreviews.com , Examiner.com.
