The legendary Django Reinhardt appears on an AVID release for the second time, here featuring his electric period. Focusing on his music after 1947 when he returned from the USA having played with Duke Ellington, we also include a valuable recording made at the RDF radio studios possibly for a film soundtrack and skillfully re-mastered by AVID's own sound engineers. Django's music in the 1950's underwent many changes as witnessed among these tracks. We travel through small group swing to bebop influenced modern harmonic and rhythmically conceptual pieces, urgent, wild and frantic as detected in his amazing guitar playing!This appearance of this album is long overdue. It represents, to my knowledge, the first recording devoted to a comprehensive look at Django's work on electric guitar. It should be no surprise that Django Reinhardt brings the same combination of technical skill and artistic exploration to the electric guitar that he brought to his acoustic guitar work...
The cuts are all from the late-40's and early-50's after the break-up of the original and justly celebrated "Quintet of the Hot Club of France" featuring Django and the great Stephane Grapelly on violin, and after returning from his only American tour, with the Duke Elliington Orchestra.
When most people think of Django Reinhardt at his best, they think of the period between 1935 until the outbreak of war in 1939, which permanently broke up the original Quintet. Stephane Grappelli, who was gay, understandably fled soon-to-be occupied France to wait out the war in Great Britain, while Reinhardt chose to stay with his gypsy compatriots in the wagon camps on the outskirts of Paris. During the war Django, despite the round-up of gypsies throughout occupied France, continued to enjoy the adulation of the many Parisian jazz fans (along with more than a few Nazi soldiers) who flocked to hear him in dark, cramped "bal musette" nightclubs and large auditoriums alike.
The occupation of France by the Nazis paradoxically opened up new avenues of artistic expression for the musician whose fellow "Romanies" were being rounded up and sent to concentration camps in Poland and Germany. Without the confining structure of the Quintet, and the familiar interplay between Django and Stephane, Reinhardt was free to explore other styles and instruments. It was during this time that he took a serious interest in what was then an exotic instrument - the "electric" guitar.
Although hollow-bodied acoustic guitars with electric pickups had already been used by musicians such as Freddie Green with the Count Basie Orchestra, these musicians played the instrument much as they would have an acoustic guitar. They simply took advantage of the increased volume of sound to finally make themselves heard over the trumpets and saxophones. Only Charlie Christian had consistently explored the many possibilities that an electrified guitar offered in the few short years he had played with the Benny Goodman Band before his death at age 23 in the early 1940s.
"The Electric Years" offers a comprehensive look at the new direction of sound and form that Reinhardt developed after World War II. These selections dispel the notion that without the classic Quintet Django's playing suffered a general decline and lack of focus. Listening to the elegiac improvisations on tunes such as "September Song" and "Crepuscule," with their drawn out notes and tender shifts in tempo and volume, one can hear Reinhardt exploring the possibilities afforded by electrification. He succeeds in bringing a fresh and beautiful new sound to jazz.
It is not the music of the old Quintette, with Django's amazing single string arpeggio runs and startlingly assured staccato improvisations. Although he can still play with the same prewar speed, the ability to draw out the notes and play audibly even in the softest of passages produces solos of tremendous beauty and variety.
If you haven't heard Django Reinhardt on electric guitar, you have missed a part what made him so special. Get this one while it's in print and available. When it goes out of print who knows how long it will be before we see such an album again.
Trax Disc: 1
1. Peche A La Mouche 2. Minor Blues 3. For Sentimental Reasons 4. Blues For Barclay 5. Danse Norvegienne 6. Folie A Amphion 7. Vette 8. Anniversary Song 9. Swing 48 10. September Song 11. Brazil 12. I'll Never Smile Again 13. New York City 14. Django's Blues 15. I Love You 16. Love's Mood 17. Vendredi 13 18. Billets Doux 19. Swing Dynamique 20. Lover Man 21. Rhythme Futur 22. Topsy 23. Moppin' The Bride (Micro) 24. Insensiblement 25. Mano 26. Blues Primitif 27. Gipsy With A Song
This music is dedicated to the tradition of Johnny Diego's Rock 'n' Roll Free Sunday!
The title kind of says it all on this CD-ification of The Milkshakes 1984 vinyl release. The sleeve note's claim that these recordings were made by The Milkshakes' fathers in the early 60s, before they all died in a plane crash in Rochester, may be treated with a certain scepticism but one listen and you could well believe it. Whichever band it was, it is pure unadorned rock & roll, not the kind of ponced up, long haired waIly variety that attempts to pass itself off as such, in endless mindless videos that the 'music industry' shoves at us daily. This is real rock & roll for real men and women - no sexism here - played with a bite that would put the fear of Elvis' sham-burgers into most of these jumped up up-starts. - jpc
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