At the time of his premature death from a cerebral haemorrhage in 1953, aged just 43, the Belgian fretboard genius Jean Baptiste ‘Django’ Reinhardt was arguably producing the most interesting music of his career. By that time, he had been using an amplified guitar for some years and had become a bebop phenomenon, fusing his ornate gypsy guitar style – a mixture of European folk song, Flamenco, French music hall songs and swing jazz – with the innovations pioneered by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker on New York’s 52nd Street. Reinhardt’s life was relatively short but, as this beautifully illustrated tome reveals, his legacy has been a long and lasting one and his influence lives on via a cadre of gypsy musicians that have followed in his wake.
Michael Dregni’s portrait of the guitarist, who was forced to play with only three fingers on his left hand after a fire had left him badly burnt, is illuminating and suffused with rich detail drawn from interviews with family, friends and contemporaries. Via a raft of photographs, family memorabilia, posters, adverts and flyers from the period, the author brings to life the lost world of itinerant gypsies in the first half of the 20th Century. A fascinating read.
