Downbeat Magazine, 15 August, 1940:

“...Together with Django Reinhardt, Phillipe Brun and tenorist Alex Combolle, one of Hawk’s few white rivals, and one or two more French stars free from military service, these last few exponents of swing kept the flag flying almost to the end and every Sunday afternoon one could hear Delaunay broadcasting their records from Poste Parisien.”

“But that was just prior to the break-through preceding the Battle of France. Now jazz is dead in the country whose watchword was once Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, and it will be many a long day before a horn is heard again in the deserted boites of Montmartre hill...”

“Efforts have been made to locate Django Reinhardt in the endeavor to bring him over to London to join his fiddle-playing sidekick Grappelly, but he cannot be traced. Whether he joined the throng who trailed wearily Bordeauxwards is not known. Maybe he has resumed the nomadic caravan life he knew before the Hot Club brought him forth into the limelight of world fame and with his guitar is wandering somewhere about France. Few there will be now to listen to the uncanny genius of one of the greatest natural musicians jazz has ever known.”

-- James P. Holloway/BBC

I have the sound turned off, but I hear it anyway.

You know that theme that's a descending scale? I think it comes from this old gypsy song:

Can you change a $20? Heres the $20, give me two $10's. Now give me two $5's for this $10. Good, now I give you the other $10 and you give me the $20, OK?

If I play those clips with the sound on, will I be able to tell what you're talking about?

I took this photo in April of 2000 at the Place des Vosges in Paris.

Django lives.

But did Django really live? I.e, could they play?

Seemed that way to me.

There are some phenomenal street musicians out there.

One night in Soho I was walking back from a Chinese restaurant and came across a guy sitting in the street playing an African kora (harp) that he was running through some sort of digital delay.... The kora sounds like 6 classical guitarists all playing at once, with the delay it was what you might expect music from an advanced alien race to sound like. Amazing.

Those guys were definitely proficient in the Hot Club style jazz of Django.

Now here's a surprise--a musician known for playing Elizabethan lute music has this story to tell...

They removed my clip again.

No matter. One has subtitles to help out all you Russian speakers.



Here, Bream takes Django's place with with Grappelli: