Favourite Django Solo?

swing68

Hi All

Sorry if this one's been done to death (well, it certainly hasn't recently) but what's your favourite Django solo and why?

Here's mine:



Unusually, it's just guitar and bass, which results in a far better sound quality and warmer tone than most of the Quintette sessions of the period. Also, Django's 'total guitar' approach, which can sometimes be over-busy in a group setting, works perfectly with only a bass counterpoint. Everything's here - chord melody, octaves, attack, sweetness of tone & phrasing.

I'll now disappear underground for a couple of months to try and learn it but am curious to know yours. Keep those posts rolling in!

A

wim

good one! i'll be glad when you're dead , you rascal you ... i've listened to the mills brothers version for long time but never noticed that django recorded it.

my favourite django solos are on honeysuckle rose and vendredi 13

Ahab

Good thread, there being so many to choose from it's not easy to pick an absolute favourite but three of my favourites would be Seul Ce Soir, a masterpiece in phrasing and ideas. Confessin from 1948 with Rex Stewart, a wonderful solo because of the way Django turns the tune inside alternating between sweet melodic major scale lines and dissonance and the use of the tri-tone substitution at the end is genius, and Nuages (Take 1) from 1947 with Stephane Grapelly is astonishing.

Ahab

Oh and one more! One of the first Django solo's I learnt, Minor Blues from 1947 with the big band arrangement, it's got one the best licks he ever played in there, I've been practicing it for over a year and a half and I still can't quite get it!

Svanis1337

I have many favourites and it's very hard to pick one, Django sometimes had more than one solo in a tune as well which makes this harder.

Some solos stick out because they deviate from his usual style completely. One such example is the 1940 "Tiger Rag" With Alix Combelle's orchestra. That is a genius recording by the way. It goes shuffle towards the end and one of the three trumpeters (Aimé Barelli?) quotes "Swanee River". It's intense. I like the solo a lot but it's rather short.

Any of the five Artillerie Lourde recordings have great and interesting solos.

Of course there's the inevitable solos like "Minor Swing" and "Belleville", I also happen to like "Vendredi 13" like wim.

If you really want to hear Django let rip and deviate, listen to the two versions of Tiger Rag with Stéphane in 1947 as well as Crazy Rhythm from the same session. Django quotes "Swanee River" in the "good" version of "Tiger Rag". (the other has a botched ending) Stéphane is really creative too in these three tunes.

Although my absolute favourites are the solos from the first version of "Manoir de mes Rèves" and the 1953 versions of "Night and Day" and "Crazy Rhythm".

swing68

Thanks guys, this is turning into a great in-car playlist!

Over on the Repertoire section @rimm mentioned the 1942 take of Bouncin' Around. Thanks for the tip, mate, I thought I'd include it here too for similar reasons to my first: the solo, a strangely melancholy thing that belies the song title, really stands out against a single guitar accompaniment.

Svanis1337

Great! If you like those kinds of solos, try Django's recording of "In a Sentimental Mood" and "When Day is Done". You will find these easily on Youtube, they're quite popular.

Some other examples of swinging solos is the second recording of "R-Vingt-Six" (the faster one), the 1947 recording of "Swingtime in Springtime". (again, the faster one) and "What Kind of Friend".
The 1947 "Nuages" on acoustic is great too. The solo is Trill note heaven!

One mustn't forget the sublime 1949 recordings and equally sublime solos on tunes like "I Surrender Dear", "La Mer", "Nature Boy", "Tchaikovsky's 6:th Symphony" (Starry Night), Just a Gigolo, Stormy Weather......

Jazzaferri

I would like to know the title and year of the recording that swing68 posted. Can anyone help.

Svanis1337

It's "You Rascal You", recorded at Studio Pathé #79 in Paris, December 21, 1937.

Bob Holo

So many...

But Vous Qui Passez Sans Me Voir is up there. It's a bit of an unusual choice, I suppose - no lightning riffs and really not as masterful as some others, but that to me is part of its appeal. It seems at once exploratory & introspective. Throughout it he is trying out the new types of "tension" that were starting to enter jazz. Once or twice he seems to have stepped outside his comfort zone or maybe even hit a wrong note, but he works with it and brings it back into the theme and makes it musical. Years later, Mingus would say something like: "It's not the mistakes, it's what you do with them that makes it jazz" Coming just a few years before his passing, it's poignant. I like to think of it as something a person might have heard if they went to see him live at that time... not something "worked out" for the recording studio, but straight out of his mind - you can hear him exploring and learning just as musicians do when they play live.

Michael Bauer

This version of Japanese Sandman is my favorite, and has been for some time. The YouTube version is faster than the recording I have (The Jazz in Paris series), which makes it sound too tinny, but when I listen to my recording, it sounds like Django, Stephane and the band were having a great time. Not the most technical solo, perhaps, or the one with the most advanced harmonic ideas, but to me, this is the epitome of Django and the Hot Club having fun.

[/url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9WqcgYwrA4o[url][/url]