Django Reinhardt - A Little Love, A Little Kiss (1937)

Описание: Performed by: Quintette Of The Hot Club Of France

Guitar - Django Reinhardt
Violin - Stephane Grappelly

Full Song Title: A Little Love, A Little Kiss

Recorded in: 1937

Flip side of:    • Django Reinhardt - Body And Soul (1937)  

Django Reinhardt, original name Jean Reinhardt, (born January 23, 1910, Liberchies, Belgium—died May 16, 1953, Fontainebleau, France), guitarist who is generally considered one of the few European jazz musicians of true originality.

Reinhardt, who was of Roma (Gypsy) parentage, traveled through France and Belgium as a boy and young man learning to play the violin, guitar, and banjo. The loss of the use of two fingers of his left hand after a caravan fire in 1928 did not impair his remarkable aptitude for the guitar. In 1934 he became coleader, with violinist Stéphane Grappelli, of the Quintette du Hot Club de France, a group whose many records are greatly prized by connoisseurs. In his only visit to the United States, in 1946, Reinhardt toured with the Duke Ellington orchestra.

For most of his career Reinhardt played in the swing style that reached its peak of popularity in the 1930s. Perhaps his most lasting influence on jazz was the introduction of solos based on melodic improvisation, at a time when guitarists generally played chorded solos. His inimitable improvisations, particularly those in slow tempos, were often a curious but beguiling blend of Roma and jazz sounds. Among his guitar compositions transposed into orchestral works are “Nuages” and “Manoir des mes rêves.”

In 1951, Reinhardt retired to Samois-sur-Seine, near Fontainebleau, where he lived until his death. He continued to play in Paris jazz clubs and began playing electric guitar. (He often used a Selmer fitted with an electric pickup, despite his initial hesitation about the instrument.) In his final recordings, made with his Nouvelle Quintette in the last few months of his life, he had begun moving in a new musical direction, in which he assimilated the vocabulary of bebop and fused it with his own melodic style.

On 16 May 1953, while walking from the Gare de Fontainebleau–Avon Station after playing in a Paris club, he collapsed outside his house from a brain hemorrhage. It was a Saturday, and it took a full day for a doctor to arrive. Reinhardt was declared dead on arrival at the hospital in Fontainebleau, at the age of 43.

Reinhardt is regarded as one of the greatest guitar players of all time, and the first important European jazz musician to make a major contribution with jazz guitar. During his career he wrote nearly 100 songs, according to jazz guitarist Frank Vignola.

Using a Selmer Guitar in the mid-1930s, his style took on new volume and expressiveness. Despite his physical disability, he played mainly using his index and middle fingers, and invented a distinctive style of jazz guitar.

For about a decade after Reinhardt's death, interest in his musical style was minimal. In the fifties, bebop superseded swing in jazz, rock and roll took off, and electric instruments became dominant in popular music. Since the mid-sixties, there has been a revival of interest in Reinhardt's music, a revival that has extended into the 21st century, with annual festivals and periodic tribute concerts. His devotees included classical guitarist Julian Bream and country guitarist Chet Atkins, who considered him one of the ten greatest guitarists of the twentieth century.

Jazz guitarists in the U.S., such as Charlie Byrd and Wes Montgomery, were influenced by his style. In fact, Byrd, who lived from 1925 to 1999, said that Reinhardt was his primary influence. Guitarist Mike Peters notes that "the word 'genius' is bantered about too much. But in jazz, Louis Armstrong was a genius, Duke Ellington was another one, and Reinhardt was also." Grisman adds, "As far as I'm concerned, no one since has come anywhere close to Django Reinhardt as an improviser or technician."

I hope you enjoy this as much as I have.

Best wishes,
Stu
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