9th
Django Reinhardt and the Quintet du Hot Club de France, 1938, playing J’attendrai. This is the only existing footage of the famous gypsy guitarist with synchronized sound, allowing us to see his spectacular two-fingered left hand technique. It’s also fascinating to watch his rhythm guitar players, who move as one unit and play virtually the exact same thing. This is intentional- before the addition of the fifth member of the band, Django often complained that he hated having only one guitarist (His brother, Nin-Nin) to support him when he took solos. Reinhardt relished thick, heavy accompaniment rather than sparse harmony because he wanted his rhythm guitarists to fill the role of the drummer in addition to that of the pianist.
I figured that this video would be a fitting inaugural post for this blog. As a guitar player, I can never listen to enough Django, nor can I ever stop learning from him. He revolutionized jazz by combining gypsy folk traditions, American swing, and European classical music and ultimately made it possible for the guitar to have a prominent voice in popular music. For those of you that don’t know (although I don’t know why you would), I’m starting this blog to post my rather sporadic thoughts on a variety of different types of music. Hopefully, it will be a learning experience rather than meaningless dribble, but we’ll have to wait and see.
