Django's Jazz innovations!

rob.cuellari

I'm writing a paper on what Django brought to jazz. Besides revolutionizing the guitar and setting up a completely string based jazz quartet, were there many technical aspects of his playing that also revolutionized jazz? I am not familiar with harmonies and things like that. (if anyone could enlighten me that would be great!) If there are sources I would be able to put in my bibliography other than the Dregni book, which I am already using...that would be appreciated as well.

Thanks in advance!
-Rob

MichaelHorowitz

I think Django was an incredibly creative and technically gifted musician. But it's hard to make a very strong argument that he was hugely innovative. For the most part he worked within the standard harmonic/melodic vocabulary of the swing era. His Gypsy and European heritage infused some other interesting influences into the mix, but it's hard to say from a musical standpoint that he was groundbreaking. I'd like for someone to prove me wrong...but I can't think of anything that he did that was revolutionary other then being the first guy to really play jazz at a virtuosic level on the acoustic guitar. But that's more of a technical achievement....

Mostly, I think he was just really, really good at playing withing the confines of swing era jazz. But every once in a while I think, wow, was he the first person to do this or that? Like his composition Anouman...the melodic and harmonic style of that sounds almost exactly like something Bill Evans would have written a decade later. In fact, Anouman is very close to Bill Evans Blue in Green. Maybe he was ahead of his time in some cases...

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rob.cuellari

thanks michael, i appreciate the quick reply.

Elliot

Michael, how would you compare Django to Charlie Christian in this regard? Christian always seems to bring the 'innovative, groundbreaking' accolades with him, but not Django.

MichaelHorowitz

Elliot wrote:

Michael, how would you compare Django to Charlie Christian in this regard? Christian always seems to bring the 'innovative, groundbreaking' accolades with him, but not Django.

Well, it's true that Charlie Christian had a sort of proto-bop thing happening with his phrasing and note choices. So I think it's true he was at least somewhat innovative and influenced a whole lot more people then just guitar players.

The problem with Django is that he had such an idiosyncratic style and spent 98% of career removed from the center of jazz innovation in the US. And for the most part, his unique style more or less died with him. If there had been a whole musical movement that evolved largely from Django's style then I think we would think of him as a great innovator. But in retrospect, most of the second generation Gypsy players were influenced as much or more by American jazz then Django. It's not till the last 15 years or so that we see a true resurgence in Django's style. As we all know, the Django revival has been largely imitative in nature so it's hard to really compare it to the incredible developments you have in American jazz from 1930 to today.

However, one could argue that during the last 5 years or so players such Bireli and Stochelo have made headway into a new and evolving style of Gypsy Jazz that is both based in Django's work, but also strives to explore new territory. But I'll have to admit, as much as I like some of these new recordings (like Stochelo's Ready n Able and the recent Gypst Project stuff), it usually sounds like more of a hybrid then anything really new. Much of the "new" Gypsy repertoire is just "old" bebop/modern jazz repertoire played on an acoustic guitar. So I'm still not totally convinced Django left a true legacy that we can label as "innovation."

It should also be said that in general, Gypsies could care less about "innovation." It's a cultural value that is very important to us, but not a priority in the oral/communal culture of the Sinti.

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Klezmorim

Michael Horowitz wrote:

The problem with Django is that he had such an idiosyncratic style... I'm still not totally convinced Django left a true legacy that we can label as "innovation.

I've given that some thought, too, over the years. Django played the popular tunes of his day and culture. From musettes to Tin Pan Alley and through Big Band and early "Bi Bop," Django would play it all. I think it fair to call him an "instrumental stylist," much the way Louis Prima was a "song stylist." They (and many others) found a market for what they had to offer and people of the era (and beyond!) loved it.

Had Django lived a normal life-span, would we have seen albums such "Django Meets The Beatles!" or "Django's Tapestry"?

rob.cuellari

again thanks for the info. it's just that the jazz book that we are using in class right now only mentions django for one line! it's just surreal that he is barely recognized. it's a shame that noone will really even know about him (from my class) unless by word of mouth, not that i won't be doing that!

scot

In the history of jazz, there have not been any guitarists who you could call true innovators. Charlie Christian, though he did lay groundwork for later hard bop players like Jimmy Raney, is best known for giving the electric guitar it's own voice in jazz. The trends have always been set by horn players.

Most jazz musicians liked Django's playing - if you're a musician it's hard not to be charmed by his technique, imagination and daredevil approach to playing. But Django's "ornamented arpeggio" style never caught on on this side of the pond - you could play Django's solos on a horn but no one ever did. Even contemporary guitarists in Europe did not always stick to the arpeggiated style. Django did what gypsy musicians have always done - he put his own spin on the music that was popular when and where he was. He just happened to be extraordinarily good at that.

I always did wonder how things might have turned out if he'd lived only a few more years. Contrary to the CW, I think it would have been very hard for Django to have fit with the 1st generation bebop players like Monk or Parker, for the same reasons that have prevented continental musicians (with a few exceptions) from creating great rock music.

"Anouman" also sounds a lot like Ralph Burns' "Early Autumn".

Jack

Like Scot mentions, the trends have mostly been set by horn players. I wonder, though, if you could make an argument that Django was the first musician to really use the guitar to its fullest extent in a jazz setting, incorporating all the intrinsic qualities of the instrument instead of using it solely as a rhythm instrument or as a vehicle for playing horn-based lines. Certainly he seems to be the first European musician of note to do so, and while there were American guitarists mining a similar vein, it seems that Django had more freedom to explore the instrument, perhaps because of the more prominent role of the guitar in his culture. Besides his Improvisations, tunes like Mystery Pacific and Appel Indirect make great use of the instrument's inherent strengths.

Also, you mentioned harmony in your original post-there are some tunes that still strike me as ahead of their time harmonically; Rhythme Futur (1940) Calvalerie (1943 and possibly 1937) Bolero (1937) and Place de Brouckere (1942) are just a few examples. Even when the solo portions of a tune consist of little more than a blues progression (see Brouckere) the introductory riff hints at a musical sensibility willing and eager to push the boundaries of the time. In many ways, those earlier tunes are more striking to me than the later Nuits De Saint-Germain-Des-Pres , Fleche d'Or, and Anouman simply due to the time of their composition. You might also check out Stan Ayeroff's book on Django's soloing style, which describes some of the musical ideas involved instead of simply providing a transcription (this was the first place I saw Scot's description of "ornamented arpeggios", still the best summation I've seen of Django's soloing.)

In the end, though, Django was most often on the back end of the evolution of jazz if only, or mostly, due to his physical remove from the innovations taking place in America. It might be more interesting and instructive to limit the scope of your paper to Django's influence in Europe, or on guitarists, or even on European guitarists, comparing their output with contemporary American guitarists. Among American musicians, it seems to me that Django's influence has mostly survived in the acoustic music world, with people like David Grisman and Chet Atkins keeping the tunes alive after Django's death; jazz musicians in the States, by and large, have never seemed very interested. What we've come to call 'gypsy jazz' is largely a niche music; my suspicion is that most of the people on the forum that are active performers in the Django style don't play any other form of jazz, or if they do it's likely a very similar but less technically demanding version of early jazz. There are exceptions, of course-you should get in touch with Andreas Oberg, if you haven't-but overall I'd guess many of us would be lost if dropped into a bop session or any kind of straightahead jazz situation.

I hope you'll post your paper when it's done; it should make for interesting reading!

best,
Jack.

Teddy Dupont

I think is very much depends on what your definition of "innovation" is. It may be that Reinhardt did not create anything truly original with his music and ideas but the way he pulled it all together into what was an incredibly comprehensive and previously an unthought-of package was surely innovative. Individuals may have played elements of Django's music before him but he incorporated them all into to a cohesive entity for the first time and added the not insignificant ingredient of his own special magic. The result was far greater than the sum of the individual elements and was undoubtedly new.

Prior to Django, the guitar was very much a secondary instrument in popular music; essentially for rhythm and the occasional short fill-in solo. Single-handedly, he fashioned the guitar into a solo instrument capable of performing equally with horns and any other musical instrument - something never previously considered possible.

I certainly do not agree with Michael's implication that because Django's playing did not directly lead on to the development of a musical lineage, it cannot be considered innovative. One does not necessarily depend on the other. I actually believe Django made a greater step change in guitar playing than Charlie Christian and hence, was arguably more "innovative" even though Christian had a greater apparent lasting impact on jazz guitar playing. However, I also think the disparate influences of Django and Charlie Christian on jazz guitar have become less easily differentiated over the last 30 years.

If you read articles from the 1930s particularly, you will see that many people could not believe what they were hearing when they first became exposed to Django's playing in the same way as they could not when they first heard Armstrong and Parker. His ideas, approach and attack seemed so completely new to them. I am sure at the time, they thought it was an "innovation".

MichaelHorowitz

Teddy Dupont wrote:

I certainly do not agree with Michael's implication that because Django's playing did not directly lead on to the development of a musical lineage, it cannot be considered innovative.

I do think Django was a hugely innovative guitar player. That seems to be what you're saying, and there's no doubt about that. His contributions to the instrument, it's technique, and performance practice were huge.

But my answer was addressing the original question which was whether or not Django was an innovative jazz musician. It's harder to make a case for that since from a harmonic/melodic/rhythmic/compositional standpoint he wasn't really revolutionary. He had a characteristic compositional style and certain harmonic/melodic tendencies which were very idiosyncratic. But it's hard to make an argument that he really pioneered some sort of new paradigm for jazz the way Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, etc did. Those players introduced radically new ways dealing with melody, harmony, rhythm, etc that ushered in a new era of the genre and influenced thousands of musicians. Django, on the other hand, mostly adapted a new instrument (the guitar) to the already established style of swing era jazz.

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