Jean Reinhardt, better known as Django Reinhardt, was a gypsy jazz guitarist. Today, he is still one of the most respected guitarists and influential in the history of jazz. His style of playing and composition inspired a generation of musicians, and gave birth to a style of jazz called gypsy jazz.
Django Reinhardt was born in 1910 in a vardo (a Romani wagon) in Belgium. His family was part of a nomadic Sinti group and traveled across Europe to flee WWI, before settling on the outskirts of Paris.
in 1928, Django was seriously injured in a fire in his trailer, and two fingers in his left hand are badly damaged. Despite a difficult healing and a grim diagnosis from doctors concerning his future as a guitarist, Django developed a new technique which gives his style an inimitable signature.
With the French violinist Stéphane Grappelli, Django starts the Quintette du Hot Club de France in 1934. During this successful period, they play along some of the best jazz musicians of the time. Django has a brief experience in America, notably with Duke Ellington, but accustomed to the gypsy nomadic lifestyle, he returns to Europe.
He died at 43, in Samois-sur-Seine, France. His legacy remains, for instance with the contemporary French guitarist Biréli Lagrène.
Here is a clip with the Quintette du Hot Club de France.
