Valse Manouche - Django or not?

spatzo

It is clearly not Django! the plectrum and wrist are quite rigid, the attack on the strings is far too heavy and there is absolutely no modulation on notes formation, in fact it's quite unhearthy for me. The guitar is played beyond its own possibilities (Django never did that) with the idea of being strong and to sound weird (concepts that can't be found in Django's music). The way the chords are played flat (above all the rised fifth presented as being half a wonderful idea and half a joke) also shows then that it can't be Django. Sounds more like Baro Ferret to me or anyway it reminds me the kitchy way the Ferret family always approached music ie with a good technicity (Baro), sometimes with skillness (Sarane) but always with a total lack of poetry. Moreless - and it is only my own advice and not an absolute truth - the approach is similar to Oscar Aleman's one on music: untertainment, recration, forced virtuosity. It looks like "reflective music that always works" based on the reactions of the audience and it deeply contrasts with the pure delicacy of Django's awaked dreams. Interesting anyway.

Jazzaferri

If it was Django, he was certainly having an off day. Lacks his usual lyrical phrasing and fluidity. I note the header that comes up at the end says Etienne Ferret aka Sarane

I wonder if Teddy meant that it was composed by. Django.

Teddy Dupont

Stochelo Rosenberg and Fapy Lafertin, amongst other very notable Django experts, INSIST it is Django playing.

spatzo

Really? year?
Maybe it has to be compared with the private recordings made by Jean Sablon with Django and Naguine

Teddy Dupont

If this is by Django and I increasingly think it is after being very sceptical for many years, I believe it is an acetate recording taken from the radio broadcast Django made in the UK in April, 1934. The pianist would then be Alec Siniavine who was also part of the group that accompanied Jean Sablon on this trip. Here is a recording made by that group on 11th April, 1934:-



Unlike Spatzo, I think the touch in the Valse Manouche recording is too delicate for Baro. Other than the chromatic run which sounds almost too individually fingered for Django, technically, it sounds incredibly like Django to me. Neither Sarane or Matelot could play this well.

Teddy Dupont

....here is the other recording made by that group at the same session:-

Jazzaferri

We'll, having listened to it a few more times. I still think it sounds stilted in parts, but perhaps that is more the rhythm playing that I am hearing. Certainly the barrage of triplets in the B part is very Django.they are fast and clean.

Svanis1337

Here is the full version of Valse Manouche (Choti), it seems to be from a radio broadcast. I can't make out what the title is. He says something about Naguine and then a french title and then the music starts. If anyone can make a transcription of the speaking I would be very grateful. It's hard to make out what he says.

Nobody really knows the origin, but if this is the true pitch and speed of the recording, it's quite slow. Could the chromatic run have been played this way because of the tempo being too slow?

Someone once said that Sara Tsanga, Django's sister, admitted that she was the pianist on the recording. But it could've been a lie.

note: The speaking at the beginning might also be fake, added later to the recording. But I have no idea.

I almost forgot: Very good analysis of those photos! Interesting read.

spatzo

Hard to say ... probably the record is slightly slow (when played faster it looks more like Django) - it looks like a french man reading something he wrote in bad english - he says something like:

"The first record, a chorus, was "Naguine" with the Quintet of France, recorded the 14th of February 1935, the record was not published".

It seems that he is explaining the title of the tune that has been played/transmitted just before and not the name of the tune we will hear (the first ...was...).

At the end what I hear is :

"To our dear friends Jacques Miniot (or Miniaud or...) , which is engineer, and Pierre Shaw who have just been recorded specially for the friends in the United States in our neighbor nation which are the good friends of Django Reinhardt and especially for the friends in the music Eneco shop in northern Walski. So good bye"

Of course it is hard to catch

Ufficially "Naguine" has been recorded only once as a solo in June 1939 and unfortunately never with the Quintet

Teddy Dupont

Whatever the guy says, it is quite separate from the recording itself and simply the inaccurate ramblings of the man introducing it presumably on a radio program. As he says it was never released, it is surely the "Valse Manouche" that follows his intro and not something preceding it.

When and where was this program broadcast, who recorded it at the time and where did the radio station get the "Valse Manouche" recording itself from in the first place are some of the things I would like to know?

I think I got my original copy of this (the version Svanis posted) from John Bajo about a 100 years ago and he was always a bit vague about his sources.