Maury Deutsch

tomcunn

i was reading a wikipedia entry on Maury Deutsch who worked with Charlie Parker, among others; and it says this:

"In addition to his work there, he also taught many notable musicians such as Charlie Parker, James P. Johnson, Django Reinhardt and:"

i assume this is wrong, but does anyone know?

crookedpinky

It seems unlikely, he's not mentioned in any biogs of Django that I know of and it looks like he lived his whole life in the states so I can't see how their paths would have crossed. Just my opinion.

Teddy Dupont

Without doubt this is simply untrue. Utter nonsense would probably be a more accurate description.

François RAVEZ

Considering that Django
1) did not read/write music
2) had a very basic english level
3) spent only a limited time in the USA it seems and had other centres of interest than scholar training
4) certainly learned a lot more about composition/arrangement by observing Duke Ellington every night than taking a lesson from Maury Deutsch!
it seems completely unlikely

wim

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Django_Reinhardt&diff=prev&oldid=49823428

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maury_Deutsch&diff=prev&oldid=49260737

tomcunn

interesting detective work Wim

Russell Letson

If you Google "maury deutsch" and "django," you'll see a block of text repeating across most of the results--it's from the section of the Wikipedia article Wim Glenn linked: "performing alongside notable musicians and composers such as Maury Deutsch." It was added by an anonymous Wikipedian who was very active in 2006 and almost nothing thereafter. I've no idea where the factoid came from--I've read almost all of the English-language biographical work on Django and don't recall anything that would support this assertion. I suspect it's a crank's idea.

Teddy Dupont

A bit of Wikipedia nonsense or perhaps just the fashionable concept of "Fake News". I can just imagine Django sitting down to a music lesson in the US in 1945/46. The idea is truly ridiculous.

Many people who knew him well or often played with him have said he would never talk about the technicalities of music or even musical ideas. Eddie Barclay said Django would leave the room if they ever started such discussions.

ChrisMartin

Teddy Dupont wrote: »

Many people who knew him well or often played with him have said he would never talk about the technicalities of music or even musical ideas. Eddie Barclay said Django would leave the room if they ever started such discussions.

Thank you for bringing that up.

I have posted elsewhere about how some folks on here get too hung up on the technical details of 'how to play GJ style' and totally miss the point that Django was ignorant of the rules and just winging it from his natural talent.
Then there were many sides to his playing, the early acoustic Quintet, the solo pieces the later electric sound, the be-bop and the Debussy, even accompaniment to singing stars, all of which showed he kept moving and refusing to be tied to one style or one sound.

I am sure he would get a laugh out of reading what some of his imitators are up to today.
(if he were here and had learned to read of course!)

wim

Chris Martin wrote: »

... Django was ignorant of the rules and just winging it from his natural talent.

Put a Django solo at 50% speed and transcribe a little bit to hear him methodically applying rules. No doubt "rediscovered" some existing rules, probably even invented some new ones, but to say he was ignorant and winging it on "natural talent"? It's an absurd trope that I'm always amused to hear.

Whether you learned some "rules" by studying in a classroom with such notable musicians and composers as Dr. Maury Deutsch of wikipedia fame i][u]citation needed[/u][/i, or you learned them by noodling at the guitar with sufficient time and passion to get halfway good at it, the end result is the same - they're in your brain somewhere. Django's playing is masterful and nobody ignorant of rules and structure can sound like that (..they usually sound like crap!)

François RAVEZ

One time at least we now for sure that Django tried to follow some rules, it is when he composed his Mass. He met a priest by chance on a train and asked him some details about the usual structure of church music pieces.

Concerning the anecdote reported by Eddie Barclay, I am wondering if Django was not reluctant to discuss arrangement or orchestration matters with his musicians because he regarded it not only as a waste of time but also as a questioning of his leadership.

Django was sure of what he wanted. Whenever written arrangements were needed he played each instrumental part on his guitar and someone like Gérard Lévêque transcribed it to music sheets, like for Django's lost Symphonic Poem or his Mass.

One thing we can guess from one of the few letters that Django wrote is that he would have loved to be able to write music like Duke Ellington : "Souvent a près le concèr Duke écri la musique dans le petit livig room. Alors sais mèrvèlles sais vraiment formidable Duke vien dés crire grand opéra. Sais fous." (Often after the concert Duke writes down the music in the little living-room. Then it is really a marvel. Duke has just written a great opera. It's crazy).

Well, I was just trying to put down some facts. What was in Django's head was as he said like a tap he opened and the music came flowing.