The Classic Early Recordings in Chronological Order

Reinhardt, Django

album cover

The Best from Europe's First Jazz Ensemble

When the French writer Jean Cocteau said that "Legend is flesh on the bones of fiction," he might have been thinking about Django Reinhardt, the Gypsy guitarist who became the first European jazz musician of any consequence. From the time Reinhardt (1910–1953) was a child, stories swirled around him—about his amazing musical memory, his ability to play the banjo, his first instrument, with dizzying dexterity. Cocteau claimed to have "discovered" Reinhardt playing on the street, and described his sound as a "guitar which laughs and weeps, guitar with a human voice."

Reinhardt was exposed to jazz in 1931, when he and his brother were taken in by the painter Emile Savitry, who played them the first jazz records to appear in France. A few years later he encountered violinist Stéphane Grappelli and urged him to try playing jazz on the classical violin. "It was Django's faith and Django's genius that blew away my fears," Grappelli recalled later. The two developed a musical bond and began a long-term collaboration in a group called the Quintet of the Hot Club of France. The name was clunky but the music was not: There was no drummer, and this gave the group an agile, reeling, free-spirited sound.

And the Hot Club did swing. Reinhardt plays with wild Gypsy restlessness and a classicist's respect for melody. His lines scamper and skitter far from conventional guitar practices; his strumming has the rousing triple-time fire of a musician who understood the needs of dancers. The recordings the group made early on, all documented on this budget-priced but lavish-sounding three-disc box, offer their sweetened interpretation of ragtime ("Tiger Rag" was a staple in live performance) as well as downcast melancholy blues and Reinhardt originals ("Nuages") drenched in wistfulness. The solos are usually delightful, as are the swooning, effusive exchanges between Reinhardt and Grappelli.

The group went on hiatus during World War II, and though it did re-form, it was never as compelling. Reinhardt was moving in different directions—an excellent document of his later, bebop-influenced electric-guitar sides is Pêche à la mouche, from 1947 and 1953. The earlier works, though, form the core of the Reinhardt legend—the jauntiness of the up-tempo romps, the wistful reflection of the ballads, the emotional expressivity of one Gypsy's guitar. If your needle is stuck on bebop and what came after, you're missing gems like these, which remain some of the most sublime, pleasurable jazz ever recorded.

Genre: Jazz
Released: 2000, JSP
Key Tracks: "Tiger Rag," "Ain't Misbehavin'," "Nuages."
Catalog Choice: Pêche à la mouche.
Next Stop: Claude Bolling: Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio
After That: Bireli Lagrene: Roots to Django.
Book Pages: 641–642