Friday jazz profile: Django Reinhardt, ingenuity and true adversity

 Today, let's step way back into the wayback machine and have ourselves a listen and gander at the great Django Reinhardt.  To the modern American ear, his music might sound particularly anachronistic, but I encourage everyone to listen (and read) widely.  Without Django, there would be no such thing as lead guitar.  Also, his music was really cool.

Here's the deal.  Django was a Belgian gypsy, playing guitar at a time before electrification.  Prior to electrification, the only role for a guitar in a band was as a rhythm instrument.  Why?  Volume.  The acoustic guitar just isn't as loud as, say, a horn.  (Or a violin, as played by his partner, Stephane Grappelli.)  Rhythm meant chords, chords, and more chords.  And then tragedy struck.  A caravan fire.  Reinhardt was hurt.  Badly.  Now watch and listen.  In particular, watch Django's left hand.

Did you notice something about which fingers moved?  That caravan fire did severe nerve damage to Django's left ring and pinky fingers.  They were practically paralyzed as a result.  He could barely form any chords after that.  What was Django gonna do, demand that the band organize itself around simpler chords?

Fuck that.  Django invented a new way to play guitar, and in the process, invented a new style of jazz.  If you were watching his left hand, you saw his index and middle fingers fretting single note lead lines, and doing so in a way that modern players still struggle to replicate.  With four fingers.

The "time machine/kill baby Hitler" question would be as follows: would you stop that caravan fire, if you could?  A more mystically-minded person than myself might ask if the fire was set by a particularly perverse Greek Muse.  Instead, Django simply stands as a demonstration of the strength-from-adversity principle.

And the music just swings.  Once the modern American ear gets past the anachronistic aesthetic, Django's sense of timing and rhythm, along with the fluidity of his lines were second to none.  Get over any silly modernist expectations.  This is genius.  Still, today.