New Photo of Django

Teddy Dupont

This is a previously unknown, signed photo of Django for sale on ebay.

A Gent

And signed on Bastille Day. Do you know who the "directeur" is?

Teddy Dupont

The photographer, Jean Renard, was arrested several times during the war - the final time in April, 1942 after which he was "deported" with other communists and Jews. So the photo was taken before 14th July, 1942.

Apparently the "directeur" was Maurice Detaille, the director of the ABC Theatre who also had some professional involvement with Edith Piaf.

Teddy Dupont

...and now this one has just appeared. 1942 Algeria.

spatzo

I'm not sure that the photograph that has done the photo was arrested as an omonymus Jean Renard, very well known in the french Show-business, might have shot himself the photo. He was a photograph and clarinettist that played fom 1948 to 1966, he composed many tunes for Vartan, Halliday, etc. and sold millions of records. I wrote him an email but he didn't yet answered.

Django played in the Casino Aletti in Algiers (Algeria) from 07 oct 1942 up to the 19 Oct 1942 with Hubert Rostaing, Joseph Reinhardt, Jean Storne and André Jourdan, it's trully great to have finally something on the gig in Algeria.

This 2 weeks gig was indeed a big success : the journalist Couret-Jardin wrote in a local newspaper on Oct 9th, 1942:

" The end of the show dedicated to the Quintet of France made the enjoyment of all the amateurs of good music who do not hypnotize in the admiration of a unique style and who admire all the boldnesses"

Django played each night at 9.30pm and we can imagine he probably had a lot of time also playing games in the Casino. According to Charles Delaunay, the week before in Nice he won and then immediately lost more than 100.000 US$.

Django came back alone in France leaving the Quintet in Alger where Hubert Rostaing had grown and studied at the Conservatory of Algiers and of course probably was happy to stay there for a while in a country he had left only 3 years before.

The other members of the Quintet sailed on november 7th to France just one day before the start of the US and British landing operations (Torch Operation on Algiers on 8 Nov 1942).

spatzo

Here's an announcement of one of the concerts :

spatzo

Here are the annoucements for the first and last show of Django at "Le Cadre des Vedettes" the cabaret in the Hotel-Casino Aletti were the Quintet played:

The Quintette de France was announced each day between october the 7th and october the 19th

spatzo

Delaunay reported that the sea was rough during the trip to Algeria and that Django, seasick, couldn't play for the crew's benefit.

According to Rostaing on arrival Django refused to play both on Matinées and Evenings as he had no desire to work. Actually we can say that this has to be considered differently first as the Matinées began at 3.30pm (that is to say only a few hours before the evening concerts) and also because we know through the annoucements that many other artists were already planned and above all because the day before his arrival Django was already announced playing only at 9.30pm

spatzo

I think Django was happy to play there as he completely changed the repertory for the second week as shown in this one:

spatzo

Here's the Casino Aletti:

Svanis1337

Django did a really nice drawing there. It looks like the strings are tuned to three octaves below E.

Jokes aside, it's always nice seeing you two (Teddy and Spatzo) throwing the ball at eachother, so to speak.

Meanwhile in France, Patrus is busy investigating what Django's drinking.