The Very Best of Django Reinhardt - Gypsy Jazz

1/9/11 – The Very Best of Django Reinhardt

Music is perpetual, and only the hearing is intermittent.
-Henry David Thoreau

While here in America Robert Johnson was dealing with the Devil and creating Mississippi delta blues, halfway across the world, another guitarist was developing his own style, combining elements of Romani (French gypsy) musical culture with the stylings of American jazz, most notably Louie Armstrong.  The resulting “hot jazz guitar” style has been a mainstay in jazz music since.  Along with violinist Stéphane Grappelli, the sound of Django’s “Quintette du Hot Club de France” is one of those classic sounds I had never put a name to; that silent-movie era swing, an old-timey, pre-bop jazz that speaks of smoky saloon back rooms that owes more to Scott Joplin and ragtime than to the big bands of Ellington and Goodman.

A brief disclaimer on this review – this compilation of Django’s greatest works is 52 tracks long, and over two and a half hours long.  While I don’t have the time on hand to go through a track-by-track write-up, this is more of an overview of the recordings en masse.  Many of the songs seem to blend into each other; the sound that of an era, not of individual songs.  Regardless, occasionally a familiar melody pops out – “I Got Rhythm,” Honeysuckle Rose,” “Night and Day,” “Sweet Georgia Brown,” and “Charleston” among them.

The treatment of the tunes is all fairly similar, with Reinhardt’s signature “le pompe” strum on pretty much every track, while Grappelli takes the lead more often not on the violin (which I think also points toward the very dated sound of these recordings… violin being so infrequently used in more modern jazz.)  Both take occasional solos over the form, but again, as the treatment of the tunes is so similar that they become nearly indistinguishable.  Every track seems to land in the same medium-to-uptempo swing groove, which I realize is the sound Reinhardt is know for, but I keep wanting this collection to venture somewhere else.  I think this speaks to one of the innate problems with this project; by incorporating “best of” records like this one, you lose some of the feel of a cohesive unit (be it a studio record or live concert) and instead get some “one-note” compilations like this one, which feature example upon example of the same style and technique in the same setting because that’s what this particular artist is best known for.  It is only on the generically titled “Improvisation” that Django’s solo playing sounds and his guitar comes out from behind Grappelli’s ever present violin.  The change in sound is quite refreshing; I only wish there were more of it; 43 tracks into a recording is way too long to wait for things to change up.

While I appreciate Django’s sound and style as a kind of portrait of a time and place in jazz history, this collection is too heavy a diet of similar sounding tunes for me.  Perhaps I’d appreciate it more in a wider rotation of other artists, but 52 Django tracks is too much to take in one sitting.  Perhaps if the guitar and violin textures were broken up with other ensembles, or there were more variations in mood and tempi.  This is good music, but just too much of the same thing for me.

PS - The album artwork at the top of the page is not from the same album reviewed, so if you hunt for this on iTunes or elsewhere, don't be surprised if it doesn't look the same...

Next up – “Surprise” Symphony No. 94 (Josef Haydn)

Next week – Diz and Getz (Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz)