Django Reinhardt - Djangology-The Gipsy Genius

---

Mission Control - Entry Number 004

Artist: Django Reinhardt
Title: Djangology-The Gipsy Genius

Release Date: 1990 (material recorded between 1936 and 1940; all material is presumably previously released)
Length: 1 hr 9 min
Relevance: Recommendation from Vignesh

My Favorites: "Limehouse Blues" & "Shine"

TLDR: Perhaps the second best choice for a first impression of jazz.

---

Standard blog apology for long break since last update.  But this time, it has a happy ending.  Taking so long to feel inspired to write about this CD (it predates the proper "album") led me to grow tired of listening to it over and over again.  After deciding to power through an entry about it, I turned my bus-ride-listening attention to "This is Your Brain On Music" by Daniel J. Levitin, as read by Edward Herrmann, or, as I like to call him, Eddwwarrdd Herrmmann.  The book is great, and I'd recommend it to anyone.  I'm enjoying it so much, in fact, that I'm narrating this entry in Herrrrmmmmannnn's voice, and possibly choosing words and phrasing that Lorelai Gilmore's father might choose.  If you know Herrrrrrrmmmmmmmannnnnnn's voice well enough, I'd recommend letting him narrate to you as well, and if you don't know it, imagine what Herman Munster would sound like as a Yale-educated insurance company executive. 

Anyway, the book is a bit dense and I have Attention Deficit Disorder, so I'm sure I'll get quite a bit extra out of a second listening, but one of the many things it's made me think about is this: my perception of what jazz sounds like is centered around "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck.  Things are more "jazz" or less "jazz" by being more similar or less similar to this song, and perhaps other Brubeck songs that also played on the car radio when Grandpa Schulenburg would drive us to church, or in his den when I would go in there to browse the stacks of ancient (1970s) books.  Knowing then that Grandpa was a huge jazz fan, and hearing Brubeck and especially "Take Five" more than any other* artist or song, perhaps as frequently as every week, I naturally assumed he was the best jazz artist, or the most prolific, or the more famous, or the earliest, or perhaps all of these together.  Later on I heard that Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway and their peers were some of the earliest jazz artists.  I say I "heard" this because I can't say that I "learned" it, as it wasn't added into my overall perception of jazz enough to replace Brubeck as the essential example of what jazz is.

* Of course, I've probably heard Vince Guaraldi's music from the Peanuts holiday specials more often than Dave Brubeck, but that always had an asterisk attached, much like the one you're reading now, that indicated it was Christmas-jazz, or just Christmas music, and therefore a novelty.  I can tell now that this is unfair.  Don't cut me out of the inheritance, Dad.

I'll start talking about Django Reinhardt very soon, but I'd first like to point out how great it is that, though jazz is a famously American invention, the first recordings in the jazz genre that I get to listen to in this mission are from a French group with a Romani leader (and a homosexual co-pilot; Hitler must have loved them [... according to this, my snark has a ring of truth: Django's survival through WW2 was assisted by Nazi jazz-fans]).  I would have loved to have heard some Louis Armstrong or other early jazz artist, but none are on the mission list, and I have a strange tendency to not add items to my own list simply because they deserve to be on it.  In fact most of what I've personally added are included due to a reputation for being among the worst albums ever.

So, then, Django Reinhardt and the Quintet of the Hot Club of France.  I loved it instantly.  Something makes me want to describe them by using the word "pleasant" as strongly as possible.  Fiercely enjoyable, often whirlwindy, and perhaps the most bad-ass I can imagine music getting before offending someone.  Though G-Rated, nothing here is boring or tame.  While guitarist Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli are able to rest when it's the other one's turn to solo, as a listener I'm driven along the entire time, tossed from one instrument to the next without a lull.  Levitin, in "...Brain...," describes the common jazz practice of playing the conventional melody of a song once or twice before launching into improvisations, as sort of a starting point for the song, and recommends humming the basic melody during the improvisations to help anchor the continuity of the song.  Both of these ideas helped me make sense of what I was listening to, and to feel like I was listening to it the way I was supposed to be, like I was listening for the right things.  The common-melody-then-improvisations is done here on standards I'm somewhat familiar with as well as on songs that are new to me, and it's a very satisfying effect in both cases.  These are all great reasons to listen to this collection as an introduction to early jazz, all of which overshadow the fact that it isn't performed by an American.  Obviously I don't yet know the differences between Django Reinhardt and Louis Armstrong, but Reinhardt definitely admired Armstrong, and the two hung out and played together a bit, so I'm thinking this may be the second best choice for an introduction to jazz.

---

Up Next: Another alcoholic who didn't make it to 30

---