The Django Page!
I've been a fan of Django Reinhardt for nearly 30 years now, and am very pleased to make this tribute page available for the world! There is much written about Django in a few good books, as well as many sites over the web, so I won't go over all his history again here. If you want a good site to learn more about him try this; http://www.redhotjazz.com/django.html
Or you can also try this; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_Reinhardt
The video that I have posted here is the only one that I know of at this time which features Django as well as his long time partner Stephan Grappelli. However, Django left us with a huge amount of recorded material! However out of all the CD 's now available, there were always a few that I had hoped would come out, but never did! So I decided to just go ahead and make these on my own using the many CD's I had already purchased. These are now shown and posted here on this page as the CD front/back artwork. I have these all made up in jewel cases with pre-printed CD's of each as well.
As stated, I cannot sell any of these as I do not own the rights to the recordings! But I do want to make them available, and will consider a trade of equal value for other great jazz audio and/or video. Or, I you can consider making a donation of any amount here to my PayPal account and I will let you know if I agree to it or not. Thanks, John Boda
Django Reinhardt on Video
This is the ONLY ALL SOLO Django CD that I know of! There were only a few solo pieces scattered here and there on some of his albums. many were just on the spot improvisations after the recording session and the tape was still running. The quality is not great since many are from 1930's era, but the playing is outstanding!
You can search the web (I've tried) for this one and so far it won't show up! It came out on Vinyl about 20 years ago and I still have a copy, but so far it only shows up on a very select few big Django compilations. I believe that this live recording is one of his very best because Django had something to prove, he played his electric guitar LOUD through an amp, and he was playing with a group of up and coming very good young players who seemed to inspire him in these last few years of his life. Again. the quality is not good due to the fact that it was recorded as a radio broadcast, but the playing is unmatched!
This one is very special in that is features Django playing his original version of one of his songs first, then it is followed by a modern arrangement played by Bireli LaGrene, who started off as one very good Django Gypsy jazz player! But his new arrangements are played in different modern arrangements to show what Django might have even played himself later if he had lived. Both versions have incredible guitar work! Django's are poor audio quality and Lagrene's is all digital and up to current standards.
Django died on May 15th 1953, but he was developing his style and moving into other influences and only God knows what he would have played into his later years had he lived. But he actually was very busy in those first few months of 1953, and recorded many beautiful songs up until the month of April just before his death. I have ALL his recordings from 1953 assembled here together! It is the ONLY recordings of Django that are decent to good quality! He actually recorded on multi-track high quality tape on many of these and they leave a beautiful final farewell to the world.
If you're interested in any of these please contact me at djangolives@sbcglobal.net