Customer Reviews

The Electric Years

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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.

It needs to be noted that not all of these songs are played on an electric guitar as most people understand it. On his tour of the U.S. with Duke Ellington he was given a Gibson L5 (an archtop fitted with a DeArmond pickup) because he arrived with only a suitcase. Before the end of the tour he had his friend Charles Delauney bring him the Selmer from his home, according to Michael Dregni in his bio on Reinhardt. He said, "At least it's got tone, you can hear the chords like you can on the piano." Up to the end of his too-short life he was experimenting with various after-market pickups on his acoustic Selmer guitar as they became available in France. He continued to play the Selmer in performance while he practiced on electric guitars. All you have to do is listen to the samples of the first few songs of this CD to hear the difference. For example, listen to track 10, September Song, and then track 29 of the same song. The early sessions after WWII probably showcase Django's genius on a Selmer acoustic guitar with a soundhole-mounted pickup seen in some photos. By the early 50's he was using an electric guitar. This is confirmed in notes by Pierre Michelot included with another CD that has some of these same songs: Peche à la Mouche, The Great Blue Star Sessions, 1947-1953, on Verve. On the 1953 Blue Star set we hear Django playing his electric in a bebop style with only Maurice Vander on piano, Pierre Michelot on bass, and Jean-Louis Viale on drums.

To be honest, you won't exclaim "Wow! Django on electric guitar!" when you play the first disc, because his style was so pizzicato already that the difference is barely discernible. You may, like Chad, ask "Wot? No Grappelli?" because his absence is far more noticeable. He and Django had sparked off each other and, despite the disparity of their backgrounds (the fastidious Stephane once commented " `is feet, that was something to 'ear!"), between them they created a unique sound. Instead, the clarinettist Hubert Rostaing is present on the first CD for all but the first two tracks, including transfers of recordings made in the RDF studios in Paris in September 1947. Strangely, although those five tracks show their origins, they are also the most animated, and the electricity can be detected in both senses of the word. Sound quality is otherwise excellent.

The second disc contains four sessions from the early fifties, where the amplification is much more in evidence, and radio transcriptions from November 1947, when the clarinettist was Gerard Leveque. Elsewhere, apart from the March 1953 session, at which Django relied solely on a rhythm accompaniment, the line-up is augmented by trumpet and clarinet or alto sax. These recordings have been somewhat overlooked in favour of the pre-war QHCF sides, but reveal the emergence of a bebop-influenced style. Sadly, some of the tracks on the second disc were recorded originally at too high a setting, which has produced a muddy acoustic, but that is worth tolerating because the virtuosity on display here is of a very high order.

covers Django Reinhardt from'47-'53,when he switched from acoustic to electric guitar.at least 10 of these songs I had on vinyl,which sounded pretty good.cd versions sound even better,with noise removed,but music preserved.all in all,a real keeper!

This collection is really good, and you will not be disappointed. Buy it.

There is another positive review for this set, so I don't feel like I need to repeat all of that. I just want to encourage anyone thinking of buying this set to go for it.

It is an inaccurate and politically correct view in American jazz circles that Django Reinhardt did not and could not make the transition to electric guitar. Nothing could be further from the proof as evidenced by this stunning, 2-CD set that contains tracks right up before his death in 1953. Not only did he successfully transfer his fleet-fingered runs and advanced harmonic concepts from the acoustic to the electric, but he also realized how his style could evolve to take advantage of the tonal variety and, most importantly, the added sustain of the electric guitar. In addition, this essential landmark of jazz guitar also shows in startling detail how he was absorbing the advanced ideas of be bop. It should make serious students of the genre reassess his standing among Charlie Christian, Tal Farlow, Wes Montgomery and George Benson, for example.

People go on and on about Django and his gypsy swing, and rightfully so. However this CD was a real eye-opener. I sometimes can't distinguish between jazz guitarists, but Django's electric playing is unique and exceptional.Every note seems to stand for something, and his variations in rhythm and speed kept surprising me. Django had something I often find lacking in jazz guitarists(especially since about 1970): BAllS!