Electric Django

criminel

Does anyone know in which recordings Django plays electric? Not Selmer+pickup but an actual archtop guitar.
Tks.

Svanis1337

He plays on a Gibson L-5 with Duke Ellington in 1946. Those are the only recordings we have of him on an Archtop. There has been some debate on whether he recorded the 1949 Genéve and 1950 Rome sessions on a borrowed Gibson, but I just don't hear it personally.

PapsPier

For example, Ou es tu mon amour, Svanis, you think it is not electrical sound?

Teddy Dupont

Below is a photo of Django in Rome 1950 which is claimed to have been taken at the RAI studios.These were electic/amplified guitar recordings and he is playing a Mogar in this photo. Here is a track from this session.



He is playing an electric Rio guitar at the 1948 Nice Festival (see photo) There is a poor quality recording on "Integrale Django Reinhardt" Vol 16.

The Rome 1949 recordings are all acoustic guitar.

criminel

Tks. I knew the photos but never knew if those were from actual recording sessions or just live performances or rehearsals.

pickitjohn

Vamp


@criminel you my wish to check out the related discussions right side of page above Who's Online

Svanis1337

Thanks Teddy, I was actually going to include the 1948 Nice Festival but must've forgotten. :shock: @PapsPier, no. That is definately acoustic. Any distortion on any recording with Grappelli is due to age and recording quality. He never recorded with an electric with Grappelli. This includes the Selmer/Stimer combination. I heard it was because Grappelli didn't like the sound. Maybe the tones didn't blend as well as with Acoustic/Violin.

Vamp is on the Selmer with a Stimer.

By the way, the Mogar is an acoustic guitar, so he used a pickup on that one. I don't see a cord on the 1950 photo so I assume he's not prepared it yet? Interesting that Django got his own microphone, if that's what it is on the left. I wonder how they set it all up, if they put it up to the amplifier.

Teddy Dupont

Svanis1337 wrote: »

By the way, the Mogar is an acoustic guitar, so he used a pickup on that one. I don't see a cord on the 1950 photo so I assume he's not prepared it yet? Interesting that Django got his own microphone, if that's what it is on the left. I wonder how they set it all up, if they put it up to the amplifier.

Yes that's why I said it is "claimed" to be taken at the RAI recording studios. Django has a mic (although too far away for an acoustic guitar) and there is no obvious amplification on the Mogar. However, there is something to the right of Django's thumb that does not match the shape of the sound hole (see photo) - possibly a pick-up.

There are no obvious signs (holes) of a pick-up having been fitted to the guitar from the colour photo below but there are two symmetrical marks either side of the sound hole.