Django: The Life and Music of a Gypsy Legend

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Description

Django Reinhardt used to be arguably the greatest guitarist who ever lived, crucial influence on Les Paul, Charlie Christian, B.B. King, Jerry Garcia, Chet Atkins, and lots of others. Yet there’s no major biography of Reinhardt.

Now, in Django, Michael Dregni offers a definitive portrait of this great guitarist. Handsome, charismatic, childlike, and unpredictable, Reinhardt used to be a character out of a picaresque novel. Born in a gypsy caravan at a crossroads in Belgium, he used to be almost killed in a freak fire that burned half of his body and left his left hand twisted into a claw. But with this maimed left hand flying over the frets and his right hand plucking at dizzying speed, Django became Europe’s most famous jazz musician, commanding exorbitant fees–and spending the money as fast as he made it. Dregni not only chronicles this remarkably colorful life–including a fascinating account of gypsy culture–but he also sheds much light on Django’s musicianship. He examines his long musical partnership with violinist Stéphane Grappelli–the one suave and smooth, the other sharper and more dissonant–and he traces the evolution of their novel string jazz ensemble, Quintette du Hot Club de France. Indeed, the writer spotlights Django’s amazing musical diversity, describing his swing-styled Nouveau Quintette, his big band Django’s Music, and his later bebop ensemble, in addition to his many compositions, including symphonic pieces influenced by Ravel and Debussy and his unfinished organ mass inspired by Bach. And along the way, the writer offers vivid snapshots of the jazz scene in Paris–colorful portraits of Josephine Baker, Bricktop, Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, and countless others–and of Django’s vagabond wanderings around France, Europe, and the US, where he toured with Duke Ellington.

Capturing the bizarre life and times of some of the great musicians of the twentieth century, Django is a should-read portrait of a true original.

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