The
Revival That Won't Quit
The name Django Reinhardt seems to always skirt popular
consciousness, rounding the corners from time to time, elevated by mentions in
such films as Woody Allen's Sweet and Low Down and the more recent Head in the
Clouds starring Penelope Cruz. Django's name will orbit around the tongues of
the coffeehouse cognoscenti for a while before escaping back into a netherworld
of partial recognition—most people think they've heard of Django but somehow
can't quite place him.
Certainly,
this is perpetuated by those pop cultural moments in which his name is borrowed
without full explanation about its source—the Stevie Nicks song, a cartoon
cameo in the movie Ratatouille, David Crosby's son.
Among
musicians, of course, Django's name has always been recognized as the moniker
of one of jazz's finest musicians and the standard bearer of the Gypsy jazz
genre he propelled. The Modern Jazz Quartet wrote its famous "Django," which
bore strong Gypsy jazz motifs. Wes Montgomery and many others cited Django as a
major influence. Jimi Hendrix even named his later group—Band of Gypsies—in his
honor.
In his
lifetime, he was not only a musician's musician but a pop superstar, especially
in England and his native France. Yet, his popularity has certainly faded with
his death, now, 55 years ago. Even the continuing legacy of his musical
partner—Stéphane Grappelli—for years afterward couldn't sustain the popularity
that Django enjoyed during his lifetime.
In the past
15 years, however, there has been a Gypsy jazz revival of sorts. And, rather
than fading away like many passing fads, this revival is consistently growing
year after year.
Alain Cola,
who helped spearhead not only San Diego's Gypsy jazz revival but the
international revival as well, remembers that there just weren't any musicians
performing Gypsy jazz in 1993. There had been offerings in the 1980s from Dave
Grisman, Mark O'Connor, Larry Coryell, and John Jorgenson. And Paul Mehling had
formed his Hot Club of San Francisco around 1990. But, nobody at the local
level, in the clubs and local festivals, was even talking about it.
For those
seeking a Gypsy jazz fix, there was really only one retailer in the U.S.—Paul
Hostetter—a luthier in Santa Cruz who was importing French Duponts and some
CDs. Other than that, one was lucky to happen upon some old Selmer-Maccaferri
guitar copy that had been brought back from Europe in the '50s.
Not even
Django's people, the French gypsies, were able to acquire the correct
equipment. Photos of the first Django festival held in Samois-sur-Seine show
many playing dreadnoughts and electric guitars. Why? Because no one was
producing Selmer-style guitars with any affordable frequency.
In 1993,
Cola formed San Diego's first Gypsy jazz group, simply named Gypsy Jazz, a name
that would seem trite today. But, at the time, no one knew of the term.
"Here's how
funny things work," Cola remembers. "I made a New Year's resolution to learn
blues guitar, the fingerpicking, Piedmont style. Robin Henkel was all booked
up. So, someone recommended Roger Belloni for lessons."
During one
of those lessons, Cola noticed that Belloni had a Selmer copy in his studio.
Born in France, where Django was considered a deity well into the 1960s, Cola
recognized the Gypsy jazz guitar immediately. Soon, the Piedmont blues lessons
were suspended and Cola and Belloni started gigging along with bassist Winfred
Stewart.
It was
still very piece meal as the three taught themselves Gypsy jazz while emerging
as the music's number one proponents in town. Cola remembers he would usually
play the melody but then switch immediately to rhythm so that Belloni could
solo. Stewart played a solid bass and could sing, but not at the same time.
Little by little, the three already-competent jazzmen taught themselves the new
genre and developed a sizeable repertoire. From 1993 to 1997, they gigged
locally, appearing on KSDS and at various outdoor events including the Adams
Avenue Roots Festival.
In 1995 Art
Johnson, another longtime, local jazz guitarist, picked up the Gypsy bug,
starting the Cool Club Quartet, an effort given extra credibility when local
pro and Joe Pass bassist Bob Magnusson joined the band. The quartet further
spread the word about Gypsy jazz while holding down a long-running gig at the
Horton Grand.
Pearl
Django, a Gypsy jazz outfit that has enjoyed widespread popularity, soon formed
in Seattle. And, a revival was picking up steam in Europe.
"The gypsies
were all returning to this music," Cola recalls. Many had stopped playing Gypsy
jazz regularly in order to pursue more popular and profitable endeavors. For
example, Bireli Lagrene, a child prodigy once considered Django's musical heir,
was playing fusion with the likes of Jaco Pastorius. Angelo Debarre, another
gypsy guitar virtuoso, was playing drums in a rock band.
By 1997,
the floodgates opened locally, nationally, and internationally. Unfortunately,
the trio of Alain Cola, Roger Belloni, and Winfred Stewart had run its course.
So, Cola disbanded the group and quickly put together the Hot Club of San
Diego. Joining forces with then-smooth jazz guitarist Patrick Berrogain, Cola
solidified the guitar duo that would create the Hot Club's sound for nearly 10
years. Kevin Hennessy performed bass duties on many recordings. More recently,
Paul Hormick, who had played with Cola since 1993, often subbing for Winfred
Stewart, became the group's gigging bassist.
Hormick
himself had been of fan of the music since first buying a Django record back in
the '70s. Hormick's solid jazz, pop, and folk resume, which included gigs with
Steve White, the Moonlighters, Joe Marillo, and the Triple Happiness String
Band, ensured that the Hot Club's sound was both snappy and audience friendly
while layered and richly nuanced, a contrast of opposites that has made the
best Gypsy jazz so mysterious and appealing.
At this
same time, Cola launched Dell'Arte Instruments as an answer to the
still-sputtering supply of Selmer-style guitars. Cola had grown up listening to
Django's music in France and had actually played some Gypsy jazz as part of his
larger jazz vocabulary long before his work with the trio. So, he was certain
he could replicate the Selmer sound. He first collaborated with Tijuana guitar
builder Luis Sevillano. A year later Cola teamed up with local luthier John
Kinnard and the two opened up their own shop in Santee.
Cola would
spend the next two years building his own company while becoming one of Gypsy
jazz's principal ambassadors. From 1998 through 2000, he took Dell'Arte to
every major music show as well as to the annual Django festival in Samois,
France.
In 2000,
the revival was finally entering the mainstream. First the Django Reinhardt New
York Festival was held, which featured many of the music's French stars
including Django's son Babik. Luminaries in the audience included George
Benson, Les Paul, and Al Di Meola. The concert was later issued on CD by
Atlantic Records.
As a follow
up, Cola, who had helped organize the New York festival, brought an array of
talent west to Seattle for the first Djangofest Northwest. Similar Djangofests
soon sprouted in Chicago; San Francisco; Austin, Texas; Madison, Wisconsin;
Taos; and Laguna Beach. A similar Django in June has fast become a tradition at
Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.
The guitar
team of Cola and Berrogain spread the music both in San Diego and at the
various Djangofests until Berrogain went on to form his own Hot Club Combo last
year. In the meantime, Cola has reformed the Hot Club of San Diego while
showcasing a variety of younger guitarists, including Beston Barnett and
Daniele Spadavecchia.
Barnett
pulls multiple musical duties in town and also leads his own Gypsy
jazz-cum-swing combo the Zzymzzy (formerly Speakeasy) Quartet.
Daniele
Spadavecchia, a recent transplant from New Orleans, applies a number of
variations to the genre. While staying true to Django's sound on the Gypsy jazz
numbers, he also packs a repertoire that includes many Mediterranean and
Italian pop songs. When not playing with the Hot Club, Spadavecchia performs
his solo variation, which he calls Sicilian swing, at Zia's in Little Italy.
The new Hot
Club's bass duties continue to be held down by Paul Hormick.
Django:
Rock Guitar's Missing Link
So, why should today's guitarists rediscover Gypsy jazz?
Just as
anthropologists search for the missing link that hooks human ancestry to the
chimps, pop musicologists need to fully trace back the roots of hard rock and
shred guitar. To say that post-1960's rock is simply the evolution of the
blues, with, perhaps, some classical ornamentation is just too simple.
Something truly radical seems to have hit the guitar world that goes far beyond
the Delta, Chicago, Memphis triangulation, which renders the
hillbilly/barrelhouse concoction that birthed early rock ‘n' roll. But, making
a connection between "Johnny B. Goode" and Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" is a long
stretch. So, something else must be added to the rock lineage. Enter Django Reinhardt.
Actually
the missing link is Denny Wright, the 1950s guitarist for British skiffle king
Lonnie Donegan. While American suburbia was transfixed by Elvis, British youth,
were going ape for skiffle. John Lennon's original Quarrymen were a skiffle
outfit. A teenage Jimmy Page appeared on the BBC after winning a national
skiffle contest.
The
who's-who of British rock were in fact listening to skiffle and to Denny
Wright's ferocious guitar as much if not more than Elvis'
guitar slinger Scotty Moore.
And who was
Denny Wright? None other than a Gypsy jazz apprentice.
After the
skiffle craze, Wright would return to his jazz roots, playing frequently with
Stéphane Grappelli and opening a bebop club.
For kids
like Wright, who came of age in England during the post-war era, Django was
synonymous with single-note, flat-picked, lead guitar due to his extensive
touring of England after World War II and the many recording dates that also
resulted. While Django remained a niche curiosity in the States, he became well
known in England by the 1950s. And, guitarists there readily looked at his
ferocious attack as an inspiration for guitar picking across genres. This
included the young generation that came of age in the 1960s, who would invent
the guitar-driven, post-blues sound of hard rock, a generation that included
the likes of Jeff Beck, who began weaving Django's so-called "exotic" scales
into the Yardbirds' otherwise pop-blues blend.
In England
this heightened awareness of Django's
legacy led to other serendipitous yet momentous transformations. There is the
story of Black Sabbath's guitarist Tony Iommi listening to Django while
recovering from the loss of two, fret-hand finger tips. Realizing that Django
had created his incredible repertoire with just two functioning fingers on his
left hand, Iommi decided to stick with the guitar (he had contemplated
quitting) and went on to develop the Sabbath/proto-metal guitar sound.
Another
thing to note is that whereas the advent of rock ‘n' roll in the States signaled
an abrupt rift between youth culture and that of older generations; rock ‘n'
roll in Britain emerged alongside older pop music forms. In America, young
people created a clean break from the culture of their parents, dividing
emotionally and psychologically along age lines, e.g., the Generation Gap. In
England, especially in working class cities like Liverpool, there was still a
class consciousness that segregated rich and poor while bonding the young and
the old to a greater degree. So, while rock music broke freely from jazz in
America, rock and jazz lived side by side in the U.K. In fact, the early
Beatles included many traditional numbers—"Ain't She Sweet," "Besame Mucho,"
"The Saints Come Marching In"—in their repertoire.
Two
standards recorded by the Beatles— "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "Sheik of Araby"—
were also part of Django's song list and still are prominent members of the
Gypsy jazz songbook. Combine this with the fact that Django posthumously
continued to register on the European music charts right up until the British
Invasion. (Cola remembers French dancehall bands playing "Nuages" and "Minor
Swing" as songs for teenagers to dance to.) Django was a pop superstar in
Europe, akin perhaps to a Louis Armstrong and possibly Frank Sinatra. He even became
quite wealthy. And, at the forefront, was his flamboyant, rapid-fire guitar
work and exotic arpeggios.
Nevertheless,
few, even within the guitar community, have ever heard of Boulou Ferre,
Stochelo Rosenberg, Robin Nolan, or scores of other Gypsy jazz virtuosos
playing today. This is surprising, especially since the European Gypsy jazz
community probably contains the highest concentration of flat-picking, shred
guitar talent in the world, a fact that John McLaughlin observed 30 years ago.
Gypsy
Jazz at NAMM 2008
If the NAMM show is any indication, the Gypsy jazz revival
is sticking. There were no less than 10 guitar manufacturers producing Selmer
copies, from beginners' models from Stagg and Cigano, to mid-level players from
Gitane and Music Link Dell'Arte (Dell'Arte's off-shore line), to handcrafted
professional models from Dell'Arte and Michael Dunn. This is in contrast to 15
years ago when, as stated earlier, it was nearly impossible, even for the
gypsies, to find actual Selmer-style guitars.
Another
encouraging sign was the presence of 20-year-old guitarist Tommy Davy, who,
clad in a surplus army jacket, looked ready to audition for a punk band. Yet,
Davy is a Gypsy jazz guitarist from Laguna Beach, who is ready to take Django's
legacy to a new generation. Davy even stepped on stage to play a song or two
during one of the sets performed by Cola's new Hot Club.
Other
players such as Fabrice and Tracy Vignati, who lead L.A.'s Hot Fab Djazz Club,
have incorporated the Gypsy jazz repertoire into their broader swing show.
The ever
gracious John Jorgenson was also spotted offering onlookers several songs at
both the Dell'Arte and Saga/Gitane booths.
Needless to
say, the Gypsy jazz revival is here to stay, even if it has yet to break into
the public consciousness. But, little by little, whether it be Allan Holdsworth
or the Gypsy Kings recording "Nuages" or Ry Cooder popping into the Dell'Arte
shop to buy four Selmer replicas, or Brian Setzer's flirtations with Paris
swing and the Django sound, Gypsy jazz continues to brush the sidewalls of pop
culture. Even the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society has invited Gypsy jazz
picker-extraordinaire Romane to perform in Nashville. So, who knows? Perhaps as
the world "goes country," country might be going Gypsy jazz.