The Making of Django Reinhardt
messynessychic.com
messynessychic.com
One day, probably being 16, I discovered it and it changed my experience with music forever.
While my friends fantasized with motorcycles, I was dreaming to attend the Samois Sur Senne festival. This passion drove me to fly to Rome, Paris, Berlin, etc just to see Angelo Debarre or Rosenberg, to fanatically collect records that never made it to the digital era like Waso's, and what not.
For those that weren't exposed yet to it, please, let yourself be tempted. Allow Django's music touch you with its brutal delicacy and self-mocking irony.
Now, after 30 years, I still love it.
It wasn't till I was a year or so into knowing about Django Reinhardt that I learned he did it all with just two fingers on his left hand. It blew my mind.
I wonder if we've gained or lost something culturally by having the detailed discography and life story of every artist in our pockets.
The Joe Pass tribute album is also absolutely incredible.
Truly truly some amazing music.
It's a super good time.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavengro
Shoon thimble-engro;
Avella Gorgio.” [33]
This was in the early '00s, and hand-over-heart, there was less than 10 pages _on the internet_ about Reinhardt. The collegiate library was not much more help.
Limehouse Blues https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfP820uuReI
It's not particularly important, but perhaps worth noting, that the disablement of the 2 burned fingers was not complete. Their motion and utility was severely curtailed due to the burn damage, but he still utilised them where he could. One of the final pictures in the linked article shows an example of how he could fret certain shapes with all 4 fingers if necessary, though this was certainly a minor part of his technique given the limitations.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/violin-david-schulman-1.70411...
Django's music has brought people out swinging with Balboa and Lindy Hop for decades:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAJaBKL4sw4
And Bal-swing, too:
Which was all news to me. So now I am going to spend the rest of the day finding some of Django Reinhardt's music.
That's not why. It was picked for the second-chance pool (explained at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308).
> valuable articles being flagged as dead in the new section
What are some examples?
But that aside I always felt like Django's music aged quiet poorly. A few country/blues/jazz and related styles from the first half of 20th century have. Big band - did not age well and effectively vanished as far I can see. Rag time, a very popular style for a couple of decades, gives me some enjoyment but mostly as a curiosity.
That is all in contrast to a massive body of jazz and blues music from the era that has not aged a tiny bit, like pretty much anything on Harry Smith’s "Anthology of American Folk Music". Say, for being zany and of the times "King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O" feels as real and pleasurable as anything and keeps finding its way into pop culture.
Also FWIW I like Django, but I don't know if that it's aged poorly or if it's just mostly the same across a lot of his material and that the genre itself was played out over time. It's become "hokey" as some would call it and, perhaps, since we were never there we apply our modern perceptions to it.
That said, a few bangers still stand out on the recordings and some of the solos and tempo changes are cool, even by today's standards.
Dancing bal to a gypsy jazz group at Le Colonial in SF years ago, the space cramped, the tables pushed back a few feet around, the crowd dancing and mingling amongst the tables, half knowing each other, at the twilight of a dying facet of the city... I don't remember if the musicians were very good, or even whether it was just a solo guitarist---I recall he'd played at a party a day or two before---but in that moment the music was more enchanting than any grand concert I had been to.
Even live, but in a concert hall, I expect it would have been unsatisfying. By itself, except for particular technical appreciation when at Django's level, gypsy jazz is rather monotonous. I've heard styles that need similar contexts, played out of place in concert halls, like Max Raabe, and while the musicians are excellent, it feels lacking.
But in the right context, the context it was born in, it is amazing.
There are entire festivals that happen around the world dedicated to his music!
https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/19276/upcoming-...
https://sites.google.com/view/monktonarts/gypsy-jazz-festiva...
https://www.thejazzmann.com/news/article/gypsy-jazz-festival...
Much as a subsidy may be seen as an inverted penalty, an inverted penalty is a promotion.
That's a niggling argument, but in the interests of fairness and transparency, possibly worth noting.
There's also the 2nd chance queue, as noted in this thread here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40069963>. Though that's a manual, and not automated or algorithmic, adjustment.
I'll also note that this Mostly Seems to Improve Overall Site Quality, and I'm not criticising the practice, but clarifying it.
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Notes:
1. See, e.g., <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10448419> and <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34850588>.
2. See, e.g., <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8461596> and <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39236061>.
There is an entire style of music which basically can be described as attempting to sound like him, with an active community of people playing circuits, festivals, and regularly gigging musicians exclusively building entire careers on playing Jazz Manouche.
I disagree with your take, and have trouble understanding what you mean.
Your statement about this post was addressed by dang directly, and maybe that's why your comment is being downvoted into oblivion. This feels to me like throwing the baby out with the bath water.
That is sad, given the "meat" of your comment is inquisitive, thought-provoking, and politely delivered.
Has anyone else felt frustrated by the voting patterns of the HN community lately?
But then OP gave an example of another artist where they felt like there was a stark contrast. That's interesting to me, because I don't know who Harry Smith is.