How close have you got to Django?

rimm

Now, this might be an interesting one-who have you meet that was in the company of the great one back in the day?
I once met his Chauffeur in Samois about 6 years ago, charming old man in his 90's who asked me if my Manouche gitbox was a 'Zeelmer' . Anyone beat that? Winner gets a 'No' prize.

Jazzaferri

Benny Carter jammed with Django and recorded with him. Does hearing and seeing him count or does it have to be a convesation?

noodlenot

i don´t know but benny carter rocks! (or swings, or whatever)

rimm

..I think you have to have had a chat/pint or at least handshake with chap-Agreed on Benny Carter-fantastic. 8)

swingnation

I got to meet Les Paul a while back. Told him I was a huge fan of his early work and I asked him how much influence Django had on his stuff. He told me "there's two ways to play the guitar- the right way and the wrong way. Django played the right way and I try to do the same". Then he gave me his pick...

Teddy Dupont

I've met Coleridge Goode who recorded with Django and stood in exactly the same place in Coleridge's apartment as this photo was taken.

Ted Cherrett, whom I knew, saw Django play several times.

I have attempted to speak to Stephane Grappelli several times. :roll:

My mother and father saw Django and the HCQ play in the UK in 1938. I still have the program.

Jazzaferri

WELL................. as my only claim doesn't meet the standards then I will have to hope that one of the musicians I met when a tad talked or played with him.

One of my Christmas projects is to transcribe one of Benny's solos on Farewell Blues which featured Django on guitar and the Hawk on tenor.

Lango-Django

Well, hate to brag, but after a concert in Akron, OH in the fall of 1987, I was able to get backstage and shake Stephane's hand...

And for just five dollars each, you guys can shake MY hand!

But Jim Philip, a now-deceased trumpet player with whom I used to play in Dixieland bands in Hamilton, ON, once told me a story that beats the hell out of a mere handshake.

Jim had some kind of menial job at Hamilton's concert hall, Hamilton Place, when Grapelli was booked to play there, but there was a backstage crisis: Grappelli refused to go onstage because he hadn't been able to bring his stash across the Canadian border, and it was apparently his habit never to play without a quick smoke-up prior to the gig.

So since the management of Hamilton Place knew Jim was a musician, he was the lucky one who was delegated to run out to the street and cop some dope. Jim said he was able to make the necessary purchase quickly enough so that the concert could begin after only a slight delay...

(FWIW, I can't guarantee that this story is true, but I do tend to believe Jim. He was a big band lead trumpet player and not a pot smoker or even particularly a Grappelli fan, and I genuinely don't think he had any reason to stretch the truth...?)

Will

Oh, yeah, almost forgot... My late mother had a real good looking cousin, now deceased, who married a pretty wealthy guy, Vance, who had somehow been able to get some kind of banking job in Paris in the 1930's...

Vance was a former big band sax player and a music lover and at a family reunion one night I asked him if, while in Paris, he'd ever heard of my hero, a fabulous Paris guitarist named Django Reinhardt...?

Bingo---Hell, yes! Vance said he used to go see Django and the HCQ at some dump in the Latin Quarter whenever possible, and especially remembered one memorable night when Cole Porter was there and was introduced by the MC, to great applause from the French audience.

Jazzaferri

What....Stephane a viper....who'd a thunk it

Stringswinger

I have performed two concerts with Larry Coryell (and hung out a bit with him as well). Larry recorded an album with Grapelli, who of course knew Django quite well.

Two degrees of separation for me. Seeing as Django died before I was born, that is almost as close as I can get.

Jake Fisher

Lango-Django wrote:

Well, hate to brag, but after a concert in Akron, OH in the fall of 1987, I was able to get backstage and shake Stephane's hand...

And for just five dollars each, you guys can shake MY hand!

But Jim Philip, a now-deceased trumpet player with whom I used to play in Dixieland bands in Hamilton, ON, once told me a story that beats the hell out of a mere handshake.

Jim had some kind of menial job at Hamilton's concert hall, Hamilton Place, when Grapelli was booked to play there, but there was a backstage crisis: Grappelli refused to go onstage because he hadn't been able to bring his stash across the Canadian border, and it was apparently his habit never to play without a quick smoke-up prior to the gig.

So since the management of Hamilton Place knew Jim was a musician, he was the lucky one who was delegated to run out to the street and cop some dope. Jim said he was able to make the necessary purchase quickly enough so that the concert could begin after only a slight delay...

(FWIW, I can't guarantee that this story is true, but I do tend to believe Jim. He was a big band lead trumpet player and not a pot smoker or even particularly a Grappelli fan, and I genuinely don't think he had any reason to stretch the truth...?)

Will

Oh, yeah, almost forgot... My late mother had a real good looking cousin, now deceased, who married a pretty wealthy guy, Vance, who had somehow been able to get some kind of banking job in Paris in the 1930's...

Vance was a former big band sax player and a music lover and at a family reunion one night I asked him if, while in Paris, he'd ever heard of my hero, a fabulous Paris guitarist named Django Reinhardt...?

Bingo---Hell, yes! Vance said he used to go see Django and the HCQ at some dump in the Latin Quarter whenever possible, and especially remembered one memorable night when Cole Porter was there and was introduced by the MC, to great applause from the French audience.

:shock: .... we have a winner