The “Gypsy Jazz” of
Django Reinhardt
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Thank you to Linda and Melissa for taking the rudder
in my absence; it is very much appreciated.
How well did you like “Cadillac Records”? It is loosely
based on the real Chess Records. Any specific
comments on it or the discussion questions I
suggested? It was out of sequence, but at least you got
to see all of it in one week.
The web site has been updated, including assignment
instructions, except for today’s slides (later today).
I’ve changed the due date for the outline to January
30th. As for the genre presentations, be prepared to
forward your slides so I can share them with the class.
Tomorrow, the Faculty of Social Science is hosting a
welcome back pizza social in Building 355, Room 211
from noon to 2.
The Career Day event for Geography is next
Wednesday (29th) from 10:00 to 11:00 in Room 217.
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As noted in the reading, the ancestors of
today's Romany people were conscripted foot
soldiers in an anti-Muslim army raised in
India around 1000 A.D. The fighting took
place as far west as Persia. After it was over,
some went home and some continued further
west as mercenaries and performing
whatever skills they could pick up to enhance
their survival.
They showed up in Serbia in the 1300s, and in
Spain and France in the 1400s, by way of
North Africa.
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There are 4 to 9 million Roma
in Europe and Asia Minor
today and they speak various
related dialects that are linked
to Sanskrit.
They have – as noted in the
reading – adopted a variety of
itinerant professions: horse
traders, tinkers, basket
weavers, jewellers, instrument
repair and tuning people,
musicians and entertainers,
and much more, and they still
are largely nomadic, though
less so today.
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Romany people have been
the proverbial “other” in
European society – despised
for being outside society,
seen (sometimes rightly so)
as thieves and pickpockets.
They have been enslaved,
subjected to genocide (by
Hitler) – approximately one
quarter of the population
died – and are currently
being expelled from France
back to places like Romania
and elsewhere in Eastern
Europe.
Image source: http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://bs.kaist.ac.kr/~jhchung/lectures/AG/gypsies/gypsies.gif&imgrefurl=http://bs.kaist.ac.kr/~jhchung/lectures/AG/gypsies/&h
&tbnh=253&tbnw=199&prev=/images%3Fq%3DGypsies%2B-%2Bphotos&zoom=1&q=Gypsies+-+photos&usg=__vH4OHlR3eA51j8lDNj0E86cR7r0=&sa=X&ei=HdqOTJ-tAcL98A
Source: Wikipedia
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Music was an important part of Romany life, with
Romany players both influencing and being
influenced by the music around them (e.g. klezmer,
flamenco, etc.).
Django started out on the violin and banjo before
graduating to guitar. At a young age, he and his
brother used to busk in front of cafés in Paris.
Meanwhile, inside the dominant music was musette –
music derived from the Auvergne region of France
and performed largely on bagpipes. By the late 1890s,
Italian immigrant accordion players had begun to
displace bagpipes as the dominant instrument of
musette and they brought other musical forms –
bourrées, Italian airs, etc.
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Musette was taken in more adventurous directions
by accordionist, Émile Vacher, who had mastered
all kinds of European music, producing a new
form called valses musette. He was also a prime
exponent of a dance music called the java (a
corruption of “Ca va?”).
Soon Romany musicians (like Garcia and Minha)
were producing their own versions of the valse
known as the valse manouche. The banjo was an
instrument played in this music, and it was into
this world that Django was introduced. As the
reading describes, it was quite a “scene”!
During World War I, American jazz began to
make its entrance through U.S. army bands.
 His first recordings at the age of 18 (in 1928) showed only a
minimal influence of jazz, though he had first been exposed
to, and dazzled by, it in 1926 at a Parisian restaurant called
l'Abbaye de Thélème. A short time later, an event occurred
which would change his life – he was horribly burned in a
caravan fire.
 Despite being partially crippled as a result, Django re-learned
how to play and proved to be a master of the guitar. In
addition, despite being illiterate, he was a musical genius who
could hear complex musical pieces in his head.
 Soon he began to sit in with jazz groups, including from
Britain and the U.S. and eventually to make recordings with
them, as well as with French jazz musicians:
http://www.last.fm/music/Django+Reinhardt/+videos/+1LoIJ4W7kXiQ
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What did you think of the
Dregni excerpt? Which of the Source: High Fidelity
themes in the course outline
Report
are highlighted in Django’s
life and music? Does anything
stand out? For some general
background on the Romany
people and their music in
different regions of the globe,
I highly recommend the vivid
documentary, Latcho Drom.
Some of the themes that occur
to me include:
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Migration
Diaspora
Cultural hearths
Cross-fertilization
Adaptation/ innovation
Urban vs. rural (more with the migrants from
Auvergne)
Professional vs. amateur music production
Instruments and recording technology
Racism and other forms of marginalization
Music as a means for articulating cultural and
ethnic identity
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One of the interesting examples of crossfertilization is how gypsy music was influenced, in
the person of Django, by American (largely Black)
jazz. However, American jazz musicians repaid
the compliment, seeking to meet with him and
writing songs in his honour.
Source: Wikipedia
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Prior to his encountering jazz, Django and numerous
other Romany and non-Romany musicians mastered a
huge diversity of musical forms from various traditions
and parts of the world. This shows that globalization is
not something entirely new.
Django’s achievement is all the more remarkable given
that he lost the use of three of his five fretting fingers in
a caravan fire that left him hospitalized for two years.
He had to learn how to play all over again with just
two fingers.
I would like to show an excerpt of a documentary
called “Djangomania” on how his music has been
adopted all around the world, albeit with peaks and
valleys.