Djangology 101 with Babs

The HOLE is pleased, nay proud, to present its first guest post. May it be the first of many!

There’s nothing I can say [admits Babs], or add to what has been already been said, about Django. So instead, take a trip down memory lane with me, back to the late 1950s, in Brooklyn Heights, New York when I heard Django for the first time.

My older brother, who is five years older than I am, and was a teenager in the late 1950s, had a modest record collection of rock 'n' roll records by Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Bo Diddley and Gene Vincent. In my brother’s room was a small record player which did the job, but in our living room was a large wooden console (which little Babs was not allowed to touch) that had amplifier-powered stereo speakers, with a turntable and radio hidden under a lid in the center, and on the bottom were two doors that when opened revealed a TV set, and it played records very loud.

One wintry Sunday afternoon, my brother and I decided we’d go downstairs to play records in the living room. As we went down the stairs, I smelt cigar smoke and heard Frank Sinatra singing. When we got to the living room, my father was relaxing in his recliner, with a cigar in one hand, and a Johnny Walker Black on the rocks in the other. My brother asked my father if we could play some records, my father told him to play them in his room, and my brother abruptly marched off in a huff. As another song started to play, my father said to me, “Babs, may I have the pleasure of this dance?” which was something we did all the time; my father would get on his knees, we’d dance, he’d spin me around, and we’d laugh. When the record ended, my father put on another record, which had no lyrics, was very fast, had guitar and violin, which made me smile and giggle. My father laughed, and told me, “The man playing guitar was a Gypsy, who lived in a horse-drawn caravan in France, and only had two fingers on his left hand that he could use” all of which sounded very exotic to my eleven or twelve-year-old brain. To this day, Django always makes me smile.

Django Reinhardt: The Classic Early Recordings 

Here's a five CD set, with each CD covering over 70 minutes, excellent sound quality, from JSP Records, covering around 125 78's of Django's material.

Vol. 1 are 1934-35 recordings featuring Stephane Grapelly. "Connoisseurs will note that the first two Odeon tracks are issued here for the first time at the correct pitch".

Vol. 2 are the London Deccas (1938 & 1939).

Vol. 3 are the 1938-39 Paris Decca recordings.

Vol. 4 includes the Coleman Hawkins session.

Vol. 5 covers the 1937 HMV sessions, plus the Garnet Clark recordings from 1935.

As it says on the front of the box, "The music on this CD set has been restored from the best available 78 copies, which have been carefully checked for pitch by the sound engineer Ted Kendall. His work is so good that it can literally be said that Reinhardt has never been heard with such presence before. The guitarist's fingers can be heard moving across the fingerboard, and there is a new resonance as he plucks each note"

Enjoy!

[Babs will be along in a while to ask a question that will unlock this treasure trove of Django goodness...if you answer correctly, of course.]