Jean Baptiste Reinhardt (1910 - 1953)

Born 23 Jan 1910 in Liberchies Wallonia District of Pont-à-Celles Municipality, Province of Hainaut, Belgium

Died 16 May 1953 at age 43 in Samois-sur-Seine, Seine-et-Marne, Île-de-France, France

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Biography

Jean Reinhardt is Notable.

Jean was born in 1910. He passed away in 1953.

Django Reinhardt & Stéphane Grappelli - Jattendrai Swing 1939 - LIVE!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANArGmr74u4

Django Reinhardt - The Best of Jazz Guitar (The Greatest Jazz Masterpieces)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3RjISiW7gA

Django Reinhardt: The Unlikely Rise of a Jazz Icon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M0zlcPlVvo

Jean Baptiste Reinhardt , known as Django Reinhardt , born in Liberchies on January 23 , 1910 and died in Fontainebleau on May 16 , 1953 was a Belgian jazz guitarist of Sinti Roma Gypsy origin . This is the first jazz musician originating in Europe who exerted an influence similar to that of the great American artists . His music is the result of the fusion between swing and the gypsy musical tradition of Eastern Europe, which is known in English as Gypsy jazz and in French as Jazz manouche (Gypsy jazz) also known among the hipsters of the time as "Hot Jazz".

Although he was already an accomplished guitarist in 1928 Django Reinhardt's left hand was burned in a fire on October 26th when he was 18 and lost the use of two fingers.

Django, just 18, was badly burned in his caravan wagon after returning from a late night gig.

Django Reinhardt had just finished the performance and was heading to his caravan located on the outskirts of Paris. As Reinhardt entered the his caravan wagon he noticed a lighted candle had been knocked over that accidentally ignited some highly flammable celluloid material that his wife used to make artificial flowers. The flames quickly spread, engulfing the entire caravan. Django's quick reflexes kicked in and he managed to escape the burning caravan. However, the damage had already been done. The intense heat and flames had caused severe burns to his right leg and left hand, the fret hand that was crucial for playing the guitar. The young guitarist was rushed to the hospital in Paris where the doctors assessed the extent of his injuries. The burns on his right leg were serious but it was his left hand that concerned the medical team. Most of the skin on his hand had been charred and the flesh was badly damaged. The injury extended from his fingertips to his wrist and the doctors feared that he might lose use of his hand permanently. Reinhardt underwent a series of painful treatments and surgeries in an effort to salvage his hand. The medical technology of the time was limited and the doctors did the best they could with whatever they had to work with. They carefully cleaned the wounds, removed damaged tissue and applied dressings to facilitate healing. It was a challenging and delicate process and the risk of infection was very high. During his recovery Reinhardt experienced excruciating pain, his hand was bandaged tightly and he had to endure the discomfort of the skin stretching and healing. The doctors advised him to rest and restrain from any strenuous activity including playing the guitar. They warned him that his hand might never fully recover and that he should prepare for the possibility of life without music. for Reinhardt this news was devastating: music wasn't just a hobby or a career, it was his life. The guitar was an extension of his soul and the thought of never being able to play again plunged him into deep despair. He fell into a period of depression struggling to come to terms with the potential loss of his beloved art form. However Reinhardt's determination and resilience kicked in during this low point. Refusing to accept the doctor's grim prognosis he began a painstaking and arduous journey to regain the use of his hand. He started with simple exercises carefully flexing his fingers and moving his wrist pushing through the pain and the stiffness every day. He dedicated himself to those exercises building strength and mobility. As his hand began to heal Reinhardt's focus shifted to adapting his playing style to accommodate his injuries. He had to totally rethink his approach to the guitar as his left hand could no longer stretch and move as it once had. Add to that he had lost the use of both his ring and his pinky fingers. He experimented with different techniques discovering new ways to play chords and melodies and through this he actually developed a unique style. This later became known as the "Django style" which involved using only two fingers on his left hand to fret the notes with his third finger providing some support behind the fret finger and used occasionally in cording as well. The recovery process was slow and challenging, requiring immense patience and perseverance. There were setbacks and moments of frustration but Reinhardt pushed through, driven by his unwavering passion for music. He worked on regaining control and precision determined to recapture the fluidity and speed he once possessed. During this period Reinhardt also relied on the support of his family and friends who encouraged him and provided emotional strength; their belief in his ability to overcome the injury played a crucial role in his recovery. It took nearly 2 years of intense rehab and practice for Reinhardt to regain a significant level of functionality in his left hand. But the hard work paid off and he was able to return to the stage astonishing audiences with his remarkable comeback. Reinhardt's new style involved using only two fingers on his left hand to fret the notes with his third finger providing support by holding down the strings behind the fret finger. This new unique approach known as the Django style has since been adopted by many guitarists who admire his innovative approach to the instrument. Reinhardt's method of holding the guitar pick was somewhat unconventional and set him apart from many of his contemporaries. Unlike the standard approach of holding the pick between the pad of the thumb and the side of the index finger, Reinhardt opted for a different grip. He positioned the pick between the pad of his right thumb and the joint of his right index finger with a significant portion of the pick protruding beyond his thumb this style became known as the gypsy jazz pick grip or the Django pick grip. It gave Reinhardt a unique tone and the ability to execute rapid precise strokes with exceptional control; the extended length of the pick protruding from his thumb provided him with greater flexibility and the ability to articulate notes with a combination of speed and delicacy. He often used a combination of downstrokes and upstrokes creating a driving rhythmic sound. And the grip also facilitated quick precise string changes allowing him to navigate complex passages with fluidity and accuracy. Another interesting signature about his technique is that he often fretted notes with his index finger. And then used his middle finger to bend the string slightly creating a subtle vibrato effect to compensate for the limited mobility in the ring finger. And the pinky finger Django adapted his cord shapes as well. He frequently used chord voicings that required only three fingers with his index middle and ring figures doing most of the work. He also made use of open strings in his chord shapes allowing him to create rich full sounding chords with a minimal finger movement. These chord shapes ended up becoming a cornerstone of gypsy jazz style guitar playing rest strokes where the pick comes to rest on the adjacent string after plucking a note added emphasis and a sharper attack to his playing. And Django also employed free strokes where the pick does not come to rest on the strings allowing for a smoother, more floating sound.

He developed a unique style full of vibrato-humming fast runs, piano-like trills and sax-like speed. The third and fourth fingers of his left hand were burned and deformed. His love of the guitar and the need to perform with his gypsy family he retaught himself and developed and revolutionary new style that set a new course of the swing jazz music of his era. And he became a celebrity at the to the top of the jazz world.

Reinhardt later led the celebrated Quintette du Hot Club de France with violinist Stéphane Grappelli, toured the US in 1947 with Duke Ellington, and is regarded as Europe's first jazz improvising genius.

His Classic Early Recordings allows us to hear Reinhardt in his early years, when his unique gypsy flamenco guitar was just becoming popular in the United States especially with the USA GI's after World War II that saw him when he was performing in liberated Paris at "The Hot Club".

The club in Paris began in the fall of 1931 as the Jazz Club Universitaire, as the members were all still students; it was reborn and reimagined in 1932 as the Hot Club de France. The club was founded by jazz enthusiasts and amateurs for the sole purpose of helping to spread the music to the rest of the world.

Marriage and injury to his hand that generated a new form of Jazz music

At the age of 17, Reinhardt married Florine "Bella" Mayer, a girl from the same Romani settlement, according to Romani custom (although not an official marriage under French law).  The following year he recorded for the first time.  On these recordings, made in 1928, Reinhardt plays the "banjo" (actually the banjo-guitar) accompanying the accordionists Maurice Alexander, Jean Vaissade and Victor Marceau, and the singer Maurice Chaumel. His name was now drawing international attention, such as from British bandleader Jack Hylton, who came to France just to hear him play.  Hylton offered him a job on the spot, and Reinhardt accepted. 

Before he had a chance to start with the band, however, Reinhardt nearly died. On the night of October 26th, 1928, Reinhardt was going to bed in the wagon that he and his wife shared in the caravan. He knocked over a candle, which ignited the extremely flammable celluloid that his wife used to make artificial flowers. The wagon was quickly engulfed in flames. The couple escaped, but Reinhardt suffered extensive burns over half his body. During his 18-month hospitalization, doctors recommended amputation of his badly damaged right leg. Reinhardt refused the surgery and was eventually able to walk with the aid of a cane.

More crucial to his music, the fourth finger (ring finger) and fifth finger (little) of Reinhardt's left hand were badly burned. Doctors believed that he would never play guitar again. During many months of recuperation, Reinhardt taught himself to play again using primarily the index and third fingers of his left hand by making use of a new six-string steel-strung acoustic guitar that was bought for him by his brother, Joseph Reinhardt, who was also an accomplished guitarist. While he never regained the use of those two fingers, Reinhardt regained his musical mastery by focusing on his left index and middle fingers, using the two injured fingers only for chord work.

Within a year of the fire, in 1929, Bella Mayer gave birth to their son, Henri "Lousson" Reinhardt. Soon thereafter, the couple split up. The son eventually took the surname of his mother's new husband. As Lousson Baumgartner, the son himself became an accomplished musician who went on to record with his biological father.

Discovery of Jazz

After parting from his wife and son, Reinhardt traveled throughout France, getting occasional jobs playing music at small clubs. He had no specific goals, living a hand-to-mouth existence, spending his earnings as quickly as he made them.  Accompanying him on his travels was his new girlfriend, Sophie Ziegler. Nicknamed "Naguine," she was a distant cousin. 

In the years after the fire, Reinhardt was rehabilitating and experimenting on the guitar that his brother had given him. After having played a broad spectrum of music, he was introduced to American jazz by an acquaintance, Émile Savitry, whose record collection included such musical luminaries as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, and Lonnie Johnson. (The swinging sound of Venuti's jazz violin and Eddie Lang's virtuoso guitar-playing anticipated the more famous sound of Reinhardt and Grappelli's later ensemble.) Hearing their music triggered in Reinhardt a vision and goal of becoming a jazz professional.

While developing his interest in jazz, Reinhardt met Stéphane Grappelli, a young violinist with similar musical interests. In 1928, Grappelli had been a member of the orchestra at the Ambassador Hotel while bandleader Paul Whiteman and Joe Venuti were performing there. In early 1934 both Reinhardt and Grappelli were members of Louis Vola's band.

Second World War

When World War II broke out, the original quintet was on tour in the United Kingdom. Reinhardt returned to Paris at once,  leaving his wife in the UK. Grappelli remained in the United Kingdom for the duration of the war. Reinhardt re-formed the quintet, with Hubert Rostaing on clarinet replacing Grappelli.

While he tried to continue with his music, war with the Nazis presented Reinhardt with a potentially catastrophic obstacle, as he was a Romani jazz musician. Beginning in 1933, all German Romani were barred from living in cities, herded into settlement camps, and routinely sterilized. Romani men were required to wear a brown Gypsy ID triangle sewn on their chest,  similar to the pink triangle that homosexuals wore, and much like the yellow Star of David that Jews had to subsequently wear. During the war, Romani were systematically killed in concentration camps.  In France, they were used as slave labour on farms and in factories.  During the Holocaust an estimated 600,000 to 1.5 million Romani throughout Europe were killed.

Hitler and Joseph Goebbels viewed jazz as un-German counterculture. Nonetheless, Goebbels stopped short of a complete ban on jazz, which now had many fans in Germany and elsewhere.  Official policy towards jazz was much less strict in occupied France, according to author Andy Fry, with jazz music frequently played on both Radio France, the official station of Vichy France, and Radio Paris, which was controlled by the Germans. A new generation of French jazz enthusiasts, the Zazous, had arisen and swollen the ranks of the Hot Club.  In addition to the increased interest, many American musicians based in Paris during the thirties had returned to the US at the beginning of the war, leaving more work for French musicians. Reinhardt was the most famous jazz musician in Europe at the time, working steadily during the early war years and earning a great deal of money, yet always under threat.

Reinhardt expanded his musical horizons during this period. Using an early amplification system, he was able to work in more of a big-band format, in large ensembles with horn sections. He also experimented with classical composition, writing a Mass for the Gypsies and a symphony. Since he did not read music, Reinhardt worked with an assistant to notate what he was improvising. His modernist piece "Rythme Futur" was also intended to be acceptable to the Nazis.

In 1943, Reinhardt married his long-term partner Sophie "Naguine" Ziegler in Salbris. They had a son, Babik Reinhardt, who became a respected guitarist.

In 1943 the tide of war turned against the Germans, with a considerable darkening of the situation in Paris. Severe rationing was in place, and members of Reinhardt's circle were being captured by the Nazis or joining the resistance.

Reinhardt's first attempt at escape from Occupied France led to capture. Fortunately for him, a jazz-loving German, Luftwaffe officer Dietrich Schulz-Köhn [de], allowed him to return to Paris. Reinhardt made a second attempt a few days later, but was stopped in the middle of the night by Swiss border guards, who forced him to return to Paris again.

One of his tunes, 1940's "Nuages", became an unofficial anthem in Paris to signify hope for liberation.[20]: 93  During a concert at the Salle Pleyel, the popularity of the tune was such that the crowd made him replay it three times in a row.  The single sold over 100,000 copies.

Unlike the estimated 600,000 Romani people who were interned and killed in the Porajmos, the Romani Holocaust, Reinhardt survived the war.

Sources

• https://www.npr.org/artists/15404866/django-reinhardt

See also:

• Wikipedia: Django Reinhardt
• Wikidata: Item Q44122, en:Wikipedia