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My Melancholy Baby |
Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli |
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Django Reinhardt (g); Stéphane Grappelli (v); Gianni Safred (p); Marco Pecori (b); Aurelio de Carolis (dm)
Django’s 1949 January-February Recording Session - RAI Studios, Rome |
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My Serenade |
Stéphane Grappelli (v solo) |
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acc. by Django Reinhardt (g solo); Joseph Reinhardt, Eugène Vées (g); Louis Vola (b)
Django’s 1937 December 14 Recording Session - Swing Paris |
| My Sweet - Take 1 |
Django Reinhardt et le Quintette du Hot Club de France, avec Stéphane Grappelli |
| My Sweet - Take 2 |
Stéphane Grappelli (v); Djanqo Reinhardt (g solo); Roger Chaput, Eugène Vées (g); Louis Vola (b)
Django’s 1938 January 31 Recording Session - Decca, London |
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Mystery Pacific |
Django Reinhardt et le Quintette du Hot Club de France, avec Stéphane Grappelli |
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Stéphane Grappelli (v); Django Reinhardt (g solo); Pierre “Baro” Ferret, Marcel Bianchi (g); Louis Vola (b)
Was "Mystery Pacific" Django Reinhardt's personal tribute to Duke Ellington's "Daybreak Express"?
There's not enough similarities to call one an arrangement of the other, but there's also no doubt of the influence.
"Mystery Pacific's" opening is an obvious nod to "Daybreak" as is the simple harmonic structure and for that matter, the form of the entire piece.
However, Django must have realized that he would never be able to re-create the many colors of the Ellington band with his small group.
Instead, he and Stephane Grappelli created a new piece tailor-made for the QHCF, which is as evocative of an express train as Ellington's.
Reinhardt goes a step further than Ellington by including spots for improvised solos by himself and Grappelli.
The violinist is his usual elegant self here during his solo, but don't miss his Doppler effect background during Django's solo.
And one is constantly amazed at how Django got so much music out of a guitar when his fretting hand was so badly deformed (Thomas Cunniffe).
Influenced by Eddie Lang, Django Reinhardt in turn inspired Charlie Christian, Les Paul and especially many Europeans who also came out of the Gypsy guitar tradition, most notably Bireli Lagrene. He
developed his original style to compensate for his crippled left hand, damaged in a fire. Django's rapid, breathtaking single-note lines at up-tempos, and his expressive lyricism on ballads were an unbeatable
combination. This track is a "train song," and one of the most boisterous of such jazz treatments ever recorded. Django and Stephane as usual share the solo time, while the rest of the Quintette du Hot Club
de France lays down a fiercely driving "locomotive" foundation.
After Grappelli's passionate solo, Django enters with a scintillating run and never looks back, varying his attack to great effect in a fluent, concise improv (Scott Albin).
1937 April 26 - Columbia, Paris |
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