If Django had lived longer.....

cmcmurphy22

if he hadn’t checked out early and had lived a long life, I often wonder what musicians he would have liked.

maybe in an alternate universe Django drops a bunch of acid in the 60’s and becomes a big admirer of the dead.

personally I think he would have loved what Phil lesh was doing. Would have liked Jerry but could run circles around him. But Phil....🤔

all ideas are good ideas on this thread😉

Bones

He def seemed to be headed into bebop.

BillDaCostaWilliams

I suspect he would have been drawn to modern sounds like Bireli produced on My Favorite Django :

https://www.allmusic.com/album/my-favorite-django-mw0000646025

V-dub

You don't have to look far for that parallel universe: Grappelli went on to play with the classic American jazz greats, including Oscar Peterson, Joe Pass and produce fine recordings in the bebop style. One of my favorite records, in fact: "Skol" 1979, which I think represents the culmination of a career spanning the half-decade past the 1930s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ThtKuIhR6Y

Grappelli also collaborated with the finest classical virtuosos of the 70s and 80s. I think Django would have followed a very similar path.

He probably would not have gone fusion. That was for the next generation. Yes he was very forward looking, but it's generally rare for the old timers of the era to stray from their roots.

billyshakes

So we don't think Tony Iommi would have invited Django onstage to jam with Black Sabbath? Considering all the classical music influences Django had, he could have jumpstarted the neo-classical guitar movement of Yngwie shredders a decade earlier!

stuology

Grappelli also ended up on a Pink Floyd record so I don’t think we can rule Django out of being on a rock record. Maybe he would have added some Hot Club lines to Michelle? He would most likely have been very sniffy about the new music until he realised he had many fans in that scene, then he would have headed to London to be feted by all the new guitar heroes.

Either that or he would have taken the gig with Bing Crosby, relocated to the US and spent the rest of his life playing in Las Vegas Casinos, living off the income from his bestselling long-player Django plays the Beatles.

bbwood_98

@V-dub

"He probably would not have gone fusion. That was for the next generation. Yes he was very forward looking, but it's generally rare for the old timers of the era to stray from their roots."

Man, I'm not as sure about that. . . . See Miles Davis. Django pretty much invented whole cloth a new way to play guitar, and perhaps a style of jazz (with HCOF and Grappelli). Who's to say he would not have done that again? Certainly there is lot's of evidence that Django was absorbing the bebop language - I'd venture to guess he could have absorbed whatever language there was to hear. . .you do wonder if he know about the "race records" just before his death that would have featured Little Richard or someone like that (Rosetta Tharpe records). Or if he knew about Shidaiqu or Mariachi, or Perez Prado recording the first mambo (all in the 40's mostly).

Somewhere I heard a theory that he would become like a George Benson with singing and guitar.

scot

Since he'd become more interested in composing as he got older, and was known to enjoy movies, I always figured he'd done like his friend Henri Crolla did (very successfully), and go into the world of writing music for films. His musical ideas were increasingly sophisticated after the war and would have been perfect for the kind of films being made in 50s France. Plus, I think he was a bit bored with performing/playing the guitar in nightclubs.

billyshakes

https://djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/104448#Comment_104448

Can you imagine him doing the soundtrack for a Louis Malle or a Truffaut film? He would have been the hippest of the hip.

Lango-Django

As long as we are firmly in fantasy world, what if Django (born 1910) and Eddie Lang (born 1903) had formed a guitar duo?

stuology

Django had a hard enough time sharing the limelight with Stephane, I can’t imagine him teaming up with another guitarist! Unless Eddie was happy to just play chords - and carry Django’s guitar case.