Reinhardt was born in Liberchies, Pont-à-Celles (Belgium) in 1910 to a Manouche family of Romani descent. The family soon moved to the outskirts of Paris where his mother was a dancer and his father played piano in a family band. The Reinhardts were true Romani gypsies, living in caravans in a Romani encampment and following Romani traditions.
Jean Reinhardt (23 January 1910 – 16 May 1953), known by his Romani nickname Django ( French : [dʒãŋɡo ʁɛjnaʁt] or [dʒɑ̃ɡo ʁenɑʁt] ), was a Belgian-born Romani -French jazz guitarist and composer. He was one of the first major jazz talents to emerge in Europe and has been hailed as one of its most significant exponents.
When we were writing we ran into the inquiry “Why did Django Reinhardt return to France?”.
The most frequent answer is; Reinhardt was touring in England when the World War II broke out. Therefore, he returned to France. It was a politically tumultuous time in the history of Europe and the Nazis had taken control of France. Since the Nazis were against jazz music, Reinhardt felt the need to escape from France.
What happened to Django Reinhardt’s sons?
Reinhardt’s first son, Lousson (a. k. a. Henri Baumgartner), played jazz in a mostly bebop style in the 1950s and 1960s. He followed the Romani lifestyle and was relatively little recorded. Reinhardt’s second son, Babik, became a guitarist in a more contemporary jazz style, and recorded a number of albums before his death in 2001.
What style of jazz did django reinhardt play?
Gypsy jazz came from Paris in the form of a string band founded by guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stéphane Grappelli, called Le Quintette du Hot Club de France, which set the precedent for the Gypsy-jazz ensemble and instrumentation. In the original quintet, Django and Stéphane were supported by two rhythm guitars and upright bass.
What was Django Reinhardt’s guitar style?
John Jorgenson thought he’d heard every possible description of Django Reinhardt’s guitar style—until he was asked to play the Gypsy-jazz guitarist’s music for the 2004 film Head in the Clouds. “The British director [John Duigan] said, ‘Django Reinhardt makes a particular sort of a racket on guitar.
The answer is that Moving to Paris in the 1930s, Reinhardt and violinist Stéphane Grappelli formed the Quintet of the Hot Club of France. With their swinging fusion of American jazz, Romani rhythms, and Parisian street singing, the quintet catapulted to worldwide fame with the genre they invented, Gypsy jazz.