1. The “Gypsy Jazz” of Django Reinhardt
GLST 490 – Day 3
The “Gypsy Jazz” of
Django Reinhardt

2. Some Follow-up and Housekeeping Items
We were discussing why there aren't more women in hip hop. The misogyny might be one reason, since many rap songs categorize women as either “bitches” or “hos” or both.
Here's an example of a polyrhythmic beat:
Here's another example of blending traditional Celtic sounds with new elements:
Today we will cover a little bit about gypsy music which has also seen a fusion of traditional with modern elements:
Someone was asking for a timeline of classical music:

3. Background on the Romany People
As noted in the reading, the ancestors of today's Romany people were conscripted foot soldiers in an anti-Muslim army raised in India around 1000 A.D. The fighting took place as far west as Persia. After it was over, some went home and some continued further west as mercenaries and performing whatever skills they could pick up to enhance their survival.
They showed up in Serbia in the 1300s, and in Spain and France in the 1400s, by way of North Africa.

4. Background on the Romany People
There are 4 to 9 million Roma in Europe and Asia Minor today and they speak various related dialects that are linked to Sanskrit.
They have – as noted in the reading – adopted a variety of itinerant professions: horse traders, tinkers, basket weavers, jewellers, instrument repair and tuning people, musicians and entertainers, and much more, and they still are largely nomadic, though less so today.

5. Background on the Romany People
Romany people have been the proverbial “other” in European society – despised for being outside society, seen (sometimes rightly so) as thieves and pickpockets.
They have been enslaved, subjected to genocide (by Hitler) – approximately one quarter of the population died – and are currently being expelled from France back to places like Romania and elsewhere in Eastern Europe.
Image source:
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6. Background on the Romany People
Source: Wikipedia

7. Django Reinhardt
Music was an important part of Romany life, with Romany players both influencing and being influenced by the music around them (e.g. klezmer, flamenco, etc.)‏.
Django started out on the violin and banjo before graduating to guitar. At a young age, he and his brother used to busk in front of cafés in Paris.
Meanwhile, inside the dominant music was musette – music derived from the Auvergne region of France and performed largely on bagpipes. By the late 1890s, Italian immigrant accordion players had begun to displace bagpipes as the dominant instrument of musette and they brought other musical forms – bourrées, Italian airs, etc.

8. Django Reinhardt
Musette was taken in more adventurous directions by accordionist, Émile Vacher, who had mastered all kinds of European music, producing a new form called valses musette. He was also a prime exponent of a dance music called the java (a corruption of “Ca va?”).
Soon Romany musicians (like Garcia and Minha) were producing their own versions of the valse known as the valse manouche. The banjo was an instrument played in this music, and it was into this world that Django was introduced. As the reading describes, it was quite a “scene”!
During World War I, American jazz began to make its entrance through U.S. army bands.

9. Django Reinhardt
His first recordings at the age of 18 (in 1928) showed only a minimal influence of jazz, though he had first been exposed to, and dazzled by, it in 1926 at a Parisian restaurant called l'Abbaye de Thélème. A short time later, an event occurred which would change his life – he was horribly burned in a caravan fire.
Despite being partially crippled as a result, Django re-learned how to play and proved to be a master of the guitar. In addition, despite being illiterate, he was a musical genius who could hear complex musical pieces in his head.
Soon he began to sit in with jazz groups, including from Britain and the U.S. and eventually to make recordings with them, as well as with French jazz musicians:
Now, I'd like to show the first part of Latcho Drom.