Elliot ["So much for Django inventing 'the style', unless you think he was the only person capable of coming up with the easiest, most efficient way to play all these tunes since there is nothing altered for the handicapped in the sense of being especially idiosyncratic about them when you really look at them."]
"Django did not play in the gypsy style. He played a style that was his alone, that began with him. Certainly, he played the guitar, a traditional gypsy instrument, but his school of guitar playing was his own creation".Matelo Ferret (c.1959)
Uh...he played this thing, Gypsy Jazz, didn't he? (the converse was in the professional Jazz world of the time it was also known as 'third chair from the left...').
You're referring to the quotation from Matelo Ferret c.1959 and showing in typical fashion a good bit of disrespect. This kind of subtle discrediting is exactly what happens when one finds himself up against the ropes in a losing argument. Please do a little research on Matelo Ferret so as to understand that his words and insight carry tremendous credibility. I disagree with a lot of what you have written in your posts in this thread Elliot except for one thing, your admiration for Fapy, which I share completely. I do not, for example, agree that Fapy plays old Django better than Django which, as was correctly stated in another post, is the most ridiculous thing I have read on this board to date. Nobody plays Django better than Django and nobody plays Fapy better than Fapy regardless of finger count. Now maybe you prefer Fapy's playing to Django's. Fine, but that's a very different sentiment.
Not to diminish Django in any way, mind you, I agree with the above. Django brought a time-laden approach, found his own way in and married it to Jazz, which in that context I heartily agree. I don't accept that his deformity created the world's first use of inverted triads, that he wouldn't have been the same musician without his deformity.
Here we go again: Would he have sounded the same or different with all fingers firing? Who the heck knows and why should we care? Ipso Facto as yet another member posted. I would still listen endlessly to Django's recorded work if it sounded the same had he had 18 fingers or played only with his big toe. A most insightful remark comes from frater earlier in this thread who not only helps push aside the Hero Myth nonsense that you applied to Django but highlights the nuances of Django's playing, which if one has any musical soul, are breathtaking to listen to with a good set of headphones. His recordings, especially from 1947-1953 on amplified guitar are so alive that recording quality withstanding, they sound like they could be been recorded an hour ago. I listen to these recordings in awe of the man's musical genius, never thinking about his handicap or some mythology notion. His music is real enough for me and continues to blow me away at every level .
There's certainly a well deserved aura surrounding Django but no myth: he didn't make a deal with the devil, as Robert Johnson supposedly did, for example. And Django's recording history spans 20+ years versus the comparatively small collection of Robert Johnson (1936-37, I believe). I can see and understand the myth surrounding Robert Johnson as a result, but not Django, so it was a poor comparison to cite in your earlier post. There is plenty of recorded history about Django both in sound and print that does not permit mythology. Aura yes, mythology no. And the good doctors that researched and published that fascinating work on Django's hand have helped toward this end as well. They never claimed as you infer that Django invented inverted triads, let's try to be fair Elliot. They were saying that his disfigured hand shape required that Django play chords using 6/9 voicings and minor 6ths, as well as inverted triads. All of these chord "shapes" were accessible to Django versus the more traditional chord shapes used at the time. And, therefore, BECAUSE Django had to use these shapes, his music took on the unique tonalities of a 6/9 voicing, minor 6th voicing, etc. Nobody is claiming that these chords were invented by Django, but it is important to note that these chord tones were also not used as often in the jazz music of that early era compared to Django's recorded use of them. His hand's disfigurement therefore did impact his sound and probably his internal conception of sound as applied to composition and soloing. It's very logical thinking, makes perfect sense but in no way negates Django's incredible talent or genius. If anything it supports his creative genius and even the two doctors give full credit to him in this regard.
Jimi Hendrix played the same way as Django throughout his career if you notice - 2 fingers held more parallel than normal to the neck, thumb over chords, scales running up and down one string, etc, yet no comparable attention has been given since it is considered merely a product of being self-taught. Well that's an interesting point, but the conclusion is incorrect. First of all they were both self-taught musicians, not just Jimi . Secondly, Django didn't have a choice whereas Jimi did as all of his digits were working. And, as much as I love Jimi Hendrix, the musical styles are so completely different that they render any technical comparison pointless. Jimi's music was blues based, had much slower tempos (in general), etc. Django's music was much more sophisticated harmonically and demanded a lot more hand and finger movement, especially at the fast tempos he played, to negotiate many more chord changes. The fact that Django was able to play what he played with 2 fingers is simply astonishing and it is perfectly OK for musicians and non-musicians to appreciate and marvel at it for eternity.
I'd probably say his school of playing was his own creation also, because he was also a stylist bringing a new means of expression. But there is a tendency to emphasize most what we most know while in reality it looks like only a small fraction of Django's genius has ever made it across time, this man who could sit and seemingly spin endless melodic lines of music straight out of his imagination like Bach or Mozart. That's where I look to for Django without the mythology, Fapy too, like an open spigot or something. I see nothing short of an abundance of acknowledgment of Django's creative genius out there in the world, not a small fraction as you write. The simple fact that he played with 2 fingers makes it all the more amazing and so yes, people do often reflect on it but not without recognizing his genius. Every musician that I know gives him full credit for having the incredible talent and inventiveness to work around (or with) the handicap to express himself musically. Django was a unique musical genius and will likely remain a time tested guitar virtuoso and musical innovator of the highest caliber, regardless of finger count speculations.
Not to lose the distinction between self-expression and creativity either...didn't Hendrix play 'All Along The Watch Tower' better than Dylan himself, not to mention all the Dylan tunes the Byrds ever covered?? And how about Prince's prancing version of 'Spanish Castle Magic'?
Just kidding, wanted to see if you were still paying attention.... :P I'm not sure I am at this point...
[Elliot}[Uh...he played this thing, Gypsy Jazz, didn't he? ]
No!No! No! thats the whole point!!!----It wasnt even called 'Gypsy Jazz' till the late 80s--- No it was called Django style or Hot Club---but it certainly didn't reference a race of people--it rightly associated the music with ONE awesome genius--DJANGO because he single handedly invented it as Matelot said.
The myth has grown up in recent years that Django was simply part of some evolving gypsy musical culture and Matelo Ferret's statement succinctly debunks that misconception. Django’s music came from nowhere. There was nothing like it before him and it was far more influenced by jazz than his gypsy heritage. Django considered himself a jazz musician not a gypsy musician and, today, people like Boulou & Elios Ferre and Fapy Lafertin do not like the term "Gypsy Jazz".
That's why I included my Django monkey joke, it is the only thing we can be sure of, although Ted Dupont might disagree.
I can certainly accept that you may prefer Fapy to Django since that is purely a matter of personal taste. However, to suggest he is more creative and a smoother technician is so utterly ridiculous as to be the equivalent of claiming black is white or night is day.
Django, like the Ferrets then and now, was one of those rare musicians who could take all the music around them, and in some mysterious way come up wit something completely new. He was so good at this that people often called him a genius and that is still true today. Fapy Lafertin, for all the considerable charm in his playing, is a disciple. If you look at the recorded history, he seems to have been the first to exploit the idea of taking your musical influence from Django alone. With that, he invented the concept of "gypsy jazz", which has become a dogmatic style of music that has more in common with the bluegrass that Elliot so loathes - what with it's fixed repertoire and mindless technical virtuosity - than it does with anything I would call jazz. Fapy clearly recognizes this. Not to criticize Fapy himself, whose playing is always elegant and tasteful. His technique is flawless, and he's the modern gold standard for tone, too. But on Django's level? No - it's artist v craftsman.
"But there is a tendency to emphasize most what we most know while in reality it looks like only a small fraction of Django's genius has ever made it across time." Huh? I can't think of another musician in the history of popular music whose musical evolution was so thoroughly documented by recordings. Where do you get these ideas, Elliot? I know we rarely agree on anything, but I do think that of modern recordings of "gypsy jazz", "Star Eyes" is absolutely superb and is one of the very best recordings of modern musicians copying Django's style. Mythology aside, let's recognize this approach to music for what it is - a limiting factor to further honest development.
Yeah, as fabulous as Fapy is, he is a protege to someone who built something previously unheard.
I find much to agree with in all the posts, Elliot's too. Little to much heat though.
There's a third leg to the stool too: Gotta look around the first third of the last century for influences. Jazz was and Rock and Roll was, and Hip Hop is: hated by the big boys. In all three genre's racism, ignorance, and fear comprised the main reaction of the folks who "own the music industry".
Exactly opposing this hatred and fear is the forward leaning psychology of the fans. "out with the old, in with the new", "we are aware of or engaged in creating something never before seen", and to some extent "screw the old guys that define our lives".
Part of the "genius" of people caught in these historical points of big cultural change is competition. Lots of the public are out to do the new thing, and cultural types are out to out do each other, work with each other, steal from each other, and someone like (Dylan, Jimi, Django, and I'll leave the Rap for someone less ignorant than myself) are pushed to the front because the "movement" wants to coalesce around those who seem to embody the new. Jimi and Django were quickly aware that they could, if they tried, lead the parade and this motivation can become part of their reality and creative juice.
Also, I'm sure I'm not the only one to notice an impressionistic - painters element in Djangos playing. Hard to measure, but certainly part of the intellectual ferment of that part of that century. Just cause he WAS a pretty good painter, doesn't mean...........
Relativity? Breaking out of the racial boundaries and economic straightjackets gypsies still live in?
Lucky to be born when the middle class is also being born in Europe and the US (and buying records)?
The push to modernize orchestral music is going on then.
Unlucky to be born as facism threatens his life (or gypsies generally) but certainly informs the psychology of Vichy France.
Whether any of these can even be linked at all to Django's brilliance, who knows, but they were sure going gangbusters all around him.
He had a pretty good idea of his actual value (not in francs but as a writer, arranger, melodic inventor, etc..) and at times he was loved by lots of people, who saw in him and heard in his music new stuff and at a time when people were putting a premium on new sounds.
Fapy does not live in a time even remotely comparable.
I find nothing that hits the spot for me like the scratchy old recordings of Django and Stefan.
Nobody seems to have the arrangements. Lots of guys with metronomes on overdrive.
And certainly nobody embodying the ethic of throwing out the old and defining the new with a whole new approach but using many of the old tools. The Beatles come to mind.
"We need a radical redistribution of wealth and power" MLK
Thank you for sharing your videos of this fine music. As one who can't seem to get off this island very often, it is a rare treat to hear these performers in such a relaxed setting.
Nice thread developing here. One interesting observation from this video that nobody has remarked on yet is when Patrus comments on how all weekend long at Samois 2010 everyone was telling him (after he inquired) that Fapy and Bireli are the closest players to Django. What's interesting about this is that the playing styles of Fapy and Bireli are so different from one another yet players/attendees of the festival apparently seemed to consistently pick them out as being able to most closely "reach" Django (I'm pulling again from Patrus' comments). So when I reflect on what common playing characteristics there are with Bireli and Fapy that resemble Django, it pushes me to go well beyond the stock Djangoism's (phrases, tone, etc.) , swing sense and playing with heart qualities (that many of the top shelf GJ players all share) to a broader vision or conception of Django's music. I think that this broader "conception" is exactly what these two players really share with Django. I think too that Fapy was trying to express this in the video. But how to quantify "vision" or "conception" to come up with Bireli and Fapy as the headliners....not easy. I'll take a stab at it in hopes that it draws some more insightful musings than mine.
As with Django, both Bireli and Fapy play with more "in the present" freedom to explore melodic ideas, motifs, etc. without getting locked on auto pilot mode into familiar patterns. That "reckless abandon" feeling that you hear with Django (that "aliveness" with no fear, just going for it every time) you certainly hear with Bireli. Bireli pushes the envelope with just about every solo it seems, harmonically, melodically, rhythm, time, outside musical influences...if he feels it, he plays it on the spot. There are just so many ideas pouring out of him at once, it's almost as if there's not enough guitar left to express everything that he has to say. Fapy shares this freedom of expression as well but in a very different and much more reserved stylistic manner. Fapy plays with great melodic freedom yet he doesn't play a lot of classic Django licks. Those familiar patterns are there in his playing but much of Fapy's phrasing and lines are unique to him and very melodically driven, to my ears. Similar to Django I cannot predict, for example, what Fapy is going to play from line to line whereas I can predict what many of the other top players like Stochelo will play. Angelo Debarre shares this "spur of the moment" freedom of expression and unpredictable element to a large degree as well in his unique style and I think he too captures a lot of the spirit of Django's playing in this sense. So why then was Angelo not mentioned nearly as much, if at all during Patrus' inquiries?
I was puzzled by this and had to ponder further to arrive at where I believe the rubber really meets the road on this subject: ballad playing. Ballads are not easy to play. You can't hide behind fast tempos, space filling licks, clever picking patterns/tricks, etc...or at least for too long. Ultimately you have to say something AND say it with heartfelt soul. Now I love all of Angelo's playing and next to Bireli he is my favorite contemporary GJ artist. But when it comes to ballad playing by today's best players, the two players that raise the hair on my neck with more consistency by far than anyone else are, in fact, Bireli and Fapy. This is where their heartfelt soul, melodic gifts, nuanced playing (vibrato, slides, phrasing), and most especially their sense of time and thematic development and the use of space just shine through brighter than the rest to capture that spirit, in my humble opinion. Put another way, like Django, their ballad playing breathes. Many recordings of Fapy playing a ballad will illustrate this and perhaps some members may want to chime in on their favorites or post some mp3's (Elliot?). But I will cite one ballad played by Bireli that most members here have hopefully seen and heard. If not, then you're in for a treat so grab your headphones for this one. Listening to Bireli interpret "Si Tu Savais" on the Live in Vienna DVD best describes that so difficult to articulate aesthetic that he shares with Django. Having so much freedom in one's playing as to be almost "playful", that is exploring every musical moment without any reservation might be the one extra ingredient that puts Bireli over the top and closest to Django in conception. Here's the clip which goes down in my book as one of the best recorded moments in the history of this style of music. While many of the musical ideas may be modern, listen all the way through and decide for yourself if you can hear the elusive spirit of Django:
Have you noticed how Birelli puts "jokes" in his playing. There's something amazing about telling a good joke musically. Django of course did this. You can't tell a joke unless you are composed and relaxed. If your shredding at 180 beats per minute, your joke might be hard to get. Besides Birelli's pyrotechnics, really in spite of his technique, he, Fapy, and a couple others comes the closest to making music that's similar in style to Django.
I think Django and his sidemen were superior, not in the technical side, but because of when they played! The composition, arrangement, "conversation", and meanings you take away were influenced by the times they were being played in.
It isn't interesting to me to see a blinding bunch of notes that persist over tens of seconds. Its like watching formula 1 racing. The speed is thrilling for a little while, but culturally contextualized music is more thrilling and will continue to thrill for decades.
Django played a new music when the music was new. He played into an audience with whom that sense of newness was white hot. There is a context that cannot be duplicated by playing the right notes or playing them faster than Django played them. In the overall effect that this music can have, Django and his buds simply aren't to be equalled.
I think when we listen to music from the 30's, we provide the context as listeners that brings the music to its potential. In the same way; what we're hearing was influenced by the time in which it was played - Django's "playing out front" as Fapy put it, was a function of the times and context in which he was responding musically. It isn't just that he was some wild and crazy guy.
Birelli and Fapy satisfy a modern love of the style. They play with care, humor, good personal vibes and powerful technique. Each in a very different way from each other, but I don't think it is a matter of them being better than or not as good as. It is as if they cannot play in the same place and create the same conversation that launched the music in the first place. History matters in listening to this stuff, and it matters in creating it. Even if I wear spats and a derby hat, I'm only providing symbols of another time.
Having a conversation about the rise of facism in Europe today cannot be the same conversation as one we might have had in 36, though many of the cultural realities that make it an important conversation existed then and still exist now. In 36 you might have been understood or hated if you slammed your beer bottle down on the table as you said what needed to be said. Today, you'd just look odd.
The musical equivalents of many emotions are contextualized differently today than then.
I haven't a clue if Django drank beer, but the emotion that drips and sizzles in his playing probably isn't universally available to just any human to hear, but requires some contextualization to be felt to the point of laughter and tears.
Birelli and Fapy play into a new reality and they adapt as Django adapted, but not to the same thing. Our times are perhaps just as emotionally taxing, promising, and scary. But swing isn't playing the same role as it did in the 30's, so the emotions now are, let's say, one step removed in time and don't live in the forefront of our culture, unless you can provide a current vision of swing's context somehow.
Swing and most its champions came from a subculture striving to get loose. They were musically tied to a rebellious culture in which this music and its dances were the dominant counterpoint to the ever tangled, stuffy, and violent mess of the dominant culture.
A musician leading in this context had to be convincing. How better to convince than when you've invented a new take on the new style complete with your own expanded vocabulary of emotional literacy. Django was(is) unbelievable, then and now. He was a dynamo of cultural invention in a moment when this was most useful to the counter culture.
If swing had lost the battle for western culture at the time, we wouldn't be playing it now.
The battle still echoes.
A first in Western culture (I think") swing provided improvisation: an individuals (voice, guitar, personal take on the music) taking the front and not in some stuffy studio, but in a dance hall of people acting more than a little crazy in their own special new ways. Improv. still has its radical application in hip hop.
The celebration of an individuals ideas in the context of a crowd of like minded (and his case dancing) people.... can't think of any counterpart in the dominant western culture.
Django probably couldn't have invented string swing in 1990. The great players of this time are limited by having to necessarily look behind them and put their inventions into existing and somewhat static cultural contexts. There is no counter culture of swing to lead.
We still have a tangled, stuffy, and violent culture to rebel against though, so take heart! Practice something new today! Django's level of invention was born just at the right time to flourish but of course he couldn't know it till it was already happening. Optimism of the will pitted perhaps against pessimism of the intellect. Acting against all odds.
"We need a radical redistribution of wealth and power" MLK
The myth has grown up in recent years that Django was simply part of some evolving gypsy musical culture and Matelo Ferret's statement succinctly debunks that misconception. Django’s music came from nowhere. There was nothing like it before him and it was far more influenced by jazz than his gypsy heritage. Django considered himself a jazz musician not a gypsy musician and, today, people like Boulou & Elios Ferre and Fapy Lafertin do not like the term "Gypsy Jazz".
That's why I included my Django monkey joke, it is the only thing we can be sure of, although Ted Dupont might disagree.
I can certainly accept that you may prefer Fapy to Django since that is purely a matter of personal taste. However, to suggest he is more creative and a smoother technician is so utterly ridiculous as to be the equivalent of claiming black is white or night is day.
Some nice posts here in this here thread:
I think I've bent over backwards here to state that Django was a SINGULAR creative genius, there is no attempt to state otherwise, which would be foolish - but Fapy as a smoother technician, yes, and I stick by that minor point. However I'm not sure how Matelo or anyone else can say that Django invented the whole thing himself and that Django's music came from nowhere after listening to Eddie Lang a few times. I can respect someone but I don't have to agree with him on everything he says. Django was either purely a jazz musician as he considered himself, or he invented a new form out of nowhere like Matelo says - which is it? And if he had no ties to Gypsy culture, why was he playing what could rightly be called in a gypsy style - a la mandolin, on a hybridized flamenco/classical guitar, downstroking all the way?
As far as his output is concerned, all we have from Django are one-take singles despite the quantity and only on Rose Room and what, Honeysuckle Rose (?), do we have a small idea of what he could really do. It would be as if all we had from the Dead were their studio albums without a single live jam, on which 90% of their reputation is based. I really wish I could hear what he did when he picked up his guitar and made contemporary musicians want to put down theirs, apart from a handful of concocted 'improvisations' lifted straight from Debussy and stirred into a Gypsy gumbo with a few classical riffs, which I find somewhat a sad consolation , to tell the truth.
Comments
No!No! No! thats the whole point!!!----It wasnt even called 'Gypsy Jazz' till the late 80s--- No it was called Django style or Hot Club---but it certainly didn't reference a race of people--it rightly associated the music with ONE awesome genius--DJANGO because he single handedly invented it as Matelot said.
I can certainly accept that you may prefer Fapy to Django since that is purely a matter of personal taste. However, to suggest he is more creative and a smoother technician is so utterly ridiculous as to be the equivalent of claiming black is white or night is day.
youtube.com/user/TheTeddyDupont
"But there is a tendency to emphasize most what we most know while in reality it looks like only a small fraction of Django's genius has ever made it across time." Huh? I can't think of another musician in the history of popular music whose musical evolution was so thoroughly documented by recordings. Where do you get these ideas, Elliot? I know we rarely agree on anything, but I do think that of modern recordings of "gypsy jazz", "Star Eyes" is absolutely superb and is one of the very best recordings of modern musicians copying Django's style. Mythology aside, let's recognize this approach to music for what it is - a limiting factor to further honest development.
I find much to agree with in all the posts, Elliot's too. Little to much heat though.
There's a third leg to the stool too: Gotta look around the first third of the last century for influences. Jazz was and Rock and Roll was, and Hip Hop is: hated by the big boys. In all three genre's racism, ignorance, and fear comprised the main reaction of the folks who "own the music industry".
Exactly opposing this hatred and fear is the forward leaning psychology of the fans. "out with the old, in with the new", "we are aware of or engaged in creating something never before seen", and to some extent "screw the old guys that define our lives".
Part of the "genius" of people caught in these historical points of big cultural change is competition. Lots of the public are out to do the new thing, and cultural types are out to out do each other, work with each other, steal from each other, and someone like (Dylan, Jimi, Django, and I'll leave the Rap for someone less ignorant than myself) are pushed to the front because the "movement" wants to coalesce around those who seem to embody the new. Jimi and Django were quickly aware that they could, if they tried, lead the parade and this motivation can become part of their reality and creative juice.
Also, I'm sure I'm not the only one to notice an impressionistic - painters element in Djangos playing. Hard to measure, but certainly part of the intellectual ferment of that part of that century. Just cause he WAS a pretty good painter, doesn't mean...........
Relativity? Breaking out of the racial boundaries and economic straightjackets gypsies still live in?
Lucky to be born when the middle class is also being born in Europe and the US (and buying records)?
The push to modernize orchestral music is going on then.
Unlucky to be born as facism threatens his life (or gypsies generally) but certainly informs the psychology of Vichy France.
Whether any of these can even be linked at all to Django's brilliance, who knows, but they were sure going gangbusters all around him.
He had a pretty good idea of his actual value (not in francs but as a writer, arranger, melodic inventor, etc..) and at times he was loved by lots of people, who saw in him and heard in his music new stuff and at a time when people were putting a premium on new sounds.
Fapy does not live in a time even remotely comparable.
I find nothing that hits the spot for me like the scratchy old recordings of Django and Stefan.
Nobody seems to have the arrangements. Lots of guys with metronomes on overdrive.
And certainly nobody embodying the ethic of throwing out the old and defining the new with a whole new approach but using many of the old tools. The Beatles come to mind.
http://www.patrus53.com/2010/08/08/fapy-lafertin-v3/
with extreme close up
patrus
patrus
http://www.youtube.com/patrus53/
Thank you for sharing your videos of this fine music. As one who can't seem to get off this island very often, it is a rare treat to hear these performers in such a relaxed setting.
Cheers, mate!
As with Django, both Bireli and Fapy play with more "in the present" freedom to explore melodic ideas, motifs, etc. without getting locked on auto pilot mode into familiar patterns. That "reckless abandon" feeling that you hear with Django (that "aliveness" with no fear, just going for it every time) you certainly hear with Bireli. Bireli pushes the envelope with just about every solo it seems, harmonically, melodically, rhythm, time, outside musical influences...if he feels it, he plays it on the spot. There are just so many ideas pouring out of him at once, it's almost as if there's not enough guitar left to express everything that he has to say. Fapy shares this freedom of expression as well but in a very different and much more reserved stylistic manner. Fapy plays with great melodic freedom yet he doesn't play a lot of classic Django licks. Those familiar patterns are there in his playing but much of Fapy's phrasing and lines are unique to him and very melodically driven, to my ears. Similar to Django I cannot predict, for example, what Fapy is going to play from line to line whereas I can predict what many of the other top players like Stochelo will play. Angelo Debarre shares this "spur of the moment" freedom of expression and unpredictable element to a large degree as well in his unique style and I think he too captures a lot of the spirit of Django's playing in this sense. So why then was Angelo not mentioned nearly as much, if at all during Patrus' inquiries?
I was puzzled by this and had to ponder further to arrive at where I believe the rubber really meets the road on this subject: ballad playing. Ballads are not easy to play. You can't hide behind fast tempos, space filling licks, clever picking patterns/tricks, etc...or at least for too long. Ultimately you have to say something AND say it with heartfelt soul. Now I love all of Angelo's playing and next to Bireli he is my favorite contemporary GJ artist. But when it comes to ballad playing by today's best players, the two players that raise the hair on my neck with more consistency by far than anyone else are, in fact, Bireli and Fapy. This is where their heartfelt soul, melodic gifts, nuanced playing (vibrato, slides, phrasing), and most especially their sense of time and thematic development and the use of space just shine through brighter than the rest to capture that spirit, in my humble opinion. Put another way, like Django, their ballad playing breathes. Many recordings of Fapy playing a ballad will illustrate this and perhaps some members may want to chime in on their favorites or post some mp3's (Elliot?). But I will cite one ballad played by Bireli that most members here have hopefully seen and heard. If not, then you're in for a treat so grab your headphones for this one. Listening to Bireli interpret "Si Tu Savais" on the Live in Vienna DVD best describes that so difficult to articulate aesthetic that he shares with Django. Having so much freedom in one's playing as to be almost "playful", that is exploring every musical moment without any reservation might be the one extra ingredient that puts Bireli over the top and closest to Django in conception. Here's the clip which goes down in my book as one of the best recorded moments in the history of this style of music. While many of the musical ideas may be modern, listen all the way through and decide for yourself if you can hear the elusive spirit of Django:
Have you noticed how Birelli puts "jokes" in his playing. There's something amazing about telling a good joke musically. Django of course did this. You can't tell a joke unless you are composed and relaxed. If your shredding at 180 beats per minute, your joke might be hard to get. Besides Birelli's pyrotechnics, really in spite of his technique, he, Fapy, and a couple others comes the closest to making music that's similar in style to Django.
I think Django and his sidemen were superior, not in the technical side, but because of when they played! The composition, arrangement, "conversation", and meanings you take away were influenced by the times they were being played in.
It isn't interesting to me to see a blinding bunch of notes that persist over tens of seconds. Its like watching formula 1 racing. The speed is thrilling for a little while, but culturally contextualized music is more thrilling and will continue to thrill for decades.
Django played a new music when the music was new. He played into an audience with whom that sense of newness was white hot. There is a context that cannot be duplicated by playing the right notes or playing them faster than Django played them. In the overall effect that this music can have, Django and his buds simply aren't to be equalled.
I think when we listen to music from the 30's, we provide the context as listeners that brings the music to its potential. In the same way; what we're hearing was influenced by the time in which it was played - Django's "playing out front" as Fapy put it, was a function of the times and context in which he was responding musically. It isn't just that he was some wild and crazy guy.
Birelli and Fapy satisfy a modern love of the style. They play with care, humor, good personal vibes and powerful technique. Each in a very different way from each other, but I don't think it is a matter of them being better than or not as good as. It is as if they cannot play in the same place and create the same conversation that launched the music in the first place. History matters in listening to this stuff, and it matters in creating it. Even if I wear spats and a derby hat, I'm only providing symbols of another time.
Having a conversation about the rise of facism in Europe today cannot be the same conversation as one we might have had in 36, though many of the cultural realities that make it an important conversation existed then and still exist now. In 36 you might have been understood or hated if you slammed your beer bottle down on the table as you said what needed to be said. Today, you'd just look odd.
The musical equivalents of many emotions are contextualized differently today than then.
I haven't a clue if Django drank beer, but the emotion that drips and sizzles in his playing probably isn't universally available to just any human to hear, but requires some contextualization to be felt to the point of laughter and tears.
Birelli and Fapy play into a new reality and they adapt as Django adapted, but not to the same thing. Our times are perhaps just as emotionally taxing, promising, and scary. But swing isn't playing the same role as it did in the 30's, so the emotions now are, let's say, one step removed in time and don't live in the forefront of our culture, unless you can provide a current vision of swing's context somehow.
Swing and most its champions came from a subculture striving to get loose. They were musically tied to a rebellious culture in which this music and its dances were the dominant counterpoint to the ever tangled, stuffy, and violent mess of the dominant culture.
A musician leading in this context had to be convincing. How better to convince than when you've invented a new take on the new style complete with your own expanded vocabulary of emotional literacy. Django was(is) unbelievable, then and now. He was a dynamo of cultural invention in a moment when this was most useful to the counter culture.
If swing had lost the battle for western culture at the time, we wouldn't be playing it now.
The battle still echoes.
A first in Western culture (I think") swing provided improvisation: an individuals (voice, guitar, personal take on the music) taking the front and not in some stuffy studio, but in a dance hall of people acting more than a little crazy in their own special new ways. Improv. still has its radical application in hip hop.
The celebration of an individuals ideas in the context of a crowd of like minded (and his case dancing) people.... can't think of any counterpart in the dominant western culture.
Django probably couldn't have invented string swing in 1990. The great players of this time are limited by having to necessarily look behind them and put their inventions into existing and somewhat static cultural contexts. There is no counter culture of swing to lead.
We still have a tangled, stuffy, and violent culture to rebel against though, so take heart! Practice something new today! Django's level of invention was born just at the right time to flourish but of course he couldn't know it till it was already happening. Optimism of the will pitted perhaps against pessimism of the intellect. Acting against all odds.
Some nice posts here in this here thread:
I think I've bent over backwards here to state that Django was a SINGULAR creative genius, there is no attempt to state otherwise, which would be foolish - but Fapy as a smoother technician, yes, and I stick by that minor point. However I'm not sure how Matelo or anyone else can say that Django invented the whole thing himself and that Django's music came from nowhere after listening to Eddie Lang a few times. I can respect someone but I don't have to agree with him on everything he says. Django was either purely a jazz musician as he considered himself, or he invented a new form out of nowhere like Matelo says - which is it? And if he had no ties to Gypsy culture, why was he playing what could rightly be called in a gypsy style - a la mandolin, on a hybridized flamenco/classical guitar, downstroking all the way?
As far as his output is concerned, all we have from Django are one-take singles despite the quantity and only on Rose Room and what, Honeysuckle Rose (?), do we have a small idea of what he could really do. It would be as if all we had from the Dead were their studio albums without a single live jam, on which 90% of their reputation is based. I really wish I could hear what he did when he picked up his guitar and made contemporary musicians want to put down theirs, apart from a handful of concocted 'improvisations' lifted straight from Debussy and stirred into a Gypsy gumbo with a few classical riffs, which I find somewhat a sad consolation , to tell the truth.