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Oh just remembered another cool story. Sorry don't mean to hijack the thread. The first time Ann and I sat in with Johnny's band we just played one song called The Spinach Song. It was off a 78 record that we found at a garage sale. Julia Lee and Her Boyfriends (with Benny Carter) edit-oops wrong link here's the correct link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=024gVOIad6M.
We were supposed to play our song with the band after the first break so Ann and I got set up and we started playing a bit of it with the band so that they would know it when the break was over. The bass player, Bill Hadnott, started started playing along and I said "hey Bill knows this one". Of course, it was a common chord progression but I didn't know that at the time since I thought it was really hard compared to blues chords, but Bill said "yeah I think I played on that recording session." Sure enough, I got home that night and pulled out the 78 and there was Bill Hadnott's name on the label. Small world.
My path to Django is an odd one. I first heard about him in the 80's when I was playing in jam bands in Atlanta. Jerry Garcia did an interview in Rolling Stone & called Django his favorite guitar player. Garcia had the end of a finger crushed when he was a kid (on his right hand though) and he first checked out Django because of the finger injury. So I bought a couple of Django albums on vinyl, which I still have to this day. I loved the music, but it seemed to be a million miles away from what I was doing musically (that turned out to be untrue) and I didnt know where to begin to figure out how to play it. Fast forward 20 years, after I moved to Asheville NC. I walked in to a benefit party for an animal adoption agency, and there was a local quintet called One Leg Up wailing away on some hot gypsy jazz. I couldn't believe the beauty of it, and the infectious complexity merged with simplicity. I decided then & there that I must rediscover this music and learn how to play it. Fast forward 10 years from that (I've been playing this music for 4 years now) and I'm now a regular sub for their band and one of their guitar players is in my trio. The magic of Django!
Like the memories of many others, I guess Django was always around but I did not notice his genius until I was ready to 'get it'. As a kid in the suburbs of north London in the Swinging Sixties apart from The Beatles being everywhere I used to listen to some of my Dad's jazz records, including the Hot Club Quintet and not being old enough to really appreciate what I was hearing, it just grew on me slowly.
Then as a long-haired rock fan in the '70s I was working in the music business and running a club in the suburbs on Saturday nights featuring acts like Free, America, Mott The Hoople, Status Quo and others.
Like everyone else I wanted to be a guitar hero and was listening to the Grateful Dead, a lot of blues greats, some country and regularly devoured Guitar Player magazine every month. Many of the big names of the time Jerry Garcia (as someone already mentioned), B B King and Willie Nelson as well as the obvious jazz players, were all name-checking Django as a major influence.
By chance in the late '70s I visited a very swanky ice-cream cafe in South Kensington London (can't remember the name, it was on the Old Brompton Road; anyone know it?) with some friends and there were a couple of musicians in a corner playing this magical acoustic jazz. One of them was Martin Quittenton who I remembered from the group Steamhammer who were regulars at our club years before, but he was better known as the co-writer of Rod Stewart's hits 'Maggie May' and 'You Wear It Well'. Anyway, I asked "what was that you were playing?" and got a brief lesson in the history of Django, Steph and the Quintet which led me to seek out one of the Decca compilation LPs the very next day. Followed quickly by a couple more, but there was still no way of finding or hearing more for some years after.
The late Ian Cruickshank did more than anyone to raise awareness in Britain and around the same time Django Legacy first aired I saw him with Gary Potter again playing in the corner of a restaurant being mostly ignored by half the customers; this time it was the Pizza Express in Dean Street Soho.
By now, a more knowledgeable fan, (if not yet even a beginner as a player) I kept in touch with Ian, later buying books and CDs from him and at the same time discovering Jon Larsen's Hot Club records in Norway. People today take buying online for granted but I well remember the time and trouble of buying International Money Orders at the Post Office to send of for, first, the excellent 'Gypsy Guitars' CD featuring Angelo Debarre, Serge Camps and Frank Anastasio, soon to be followed by Lafertin, Rosenberg and many others, all of which I still listen to regularly. The notes included with these CDs were also a valuable resource.
So in those early pre-internet years my exposure was largely due to Ian Cruickshank and Jon Larsen. Ian went on to promote a Gypsy Jazz festival in the English countryside later in the '90s and thus I got to see Romane, Boulou and Elios Ferre, Joe Bawalino, various Weiss and Limbergers as well as more of the British players.
Of course the growth of the internet over the last 20+ years has given us all access to anything and everything but there was a time when you had to go out and DIG for gold.
I just realised the question was "First Time Discovered....." and I got carried away with over fifty years of learning but hey, sorry, once I started reminiscing one thing led to another and I forgot to stop. Sorry !
I joined the Yahoo group early on when I think it had 300 members or so.
@djangology I was remiss in not adding your old blog that I used to look forward to reading and checking daily for updates. There were far fewer resources then and yours was a great one.
Yeah, I was the first gypsy jazz blogger. Looking back on it, I knew only 5% of what I know today, and so it was quite an experiment. Today, there is a guy who has a similar resource list as what I used to keep. Closest thing to what I was doing, that exists today: https://djangojazzcalgary.com/
It was all about your journey anyways; you never represented yourself as someone who knew it all. In fact, for someone like me just learning, that was equally part of the appeal--knowing there was someone with similar questions, etc.
Thanks for the web link tip. Wasn't familiar with that.
Well for me, growing up in the UK, going through the folk scene thing in the early 70s, someone books Diz Disley for the local folk club and here he is doing comic songs, George Formby stuff, then throwing in Django numbers - Nuages and Sweet Georgia Brown - for the latter, getting some poor unsuspecting player up from the audience to accompany him in an odd key like F - fast right hand strumming on a Maccaferri and all these chords I had never seen or heard before!
Then a local rock guitarist namechecks Django and I end up searching out some QHCF LP releases such as the 1964 Ace of Clubs one (English Quintette, 1946) and the 1970 Decca Eclipse one.
Then Stephane Grappelli gets persuaded to play this music from 1973 onwards with Disley and others, and someone brings over the Häns'che Weiss quintet to the 1975 Cambridge Folk Festival under the headline "Django lives!" (still pretty much clueless about what was going on, though), plus Ian Cruickshank's article in 1978(?) about going to Samois and being astonished by all the players there. Plus sending away for his tape "Gypsy Jazz from France" and listening to it rather a lot! Raphael Fays, Boulou+Elios Ferre, more...
Finally from 1980 onwards getting to see a few in the flesh as Ian (mostly) brought them over to the UK to perform - Waso/Fapy Lafertin (several times), Bireli at Ronnie Scotts and later again at Cambridge in '85, his own group...and all downhill from there!
My own story continued in Australia with the opportunity to catch local players Ian Date, George Washingmachine, and more recently Jon Delaney and Josh Dunn (also the fabulous group Monsieur Camembert with Daniel Weltlinger). Still can't play the style all that well myself but I have a stagger through some Django tunes on occasion, though rarely in public, as well as enjoying listening to the best through the media of CD, DVD etc. I particularly enjoy Bireli's Biréli Lagrène - Live Jazz à Vienne for the overall feel and range of great players he managed to get to join him!
So it all started with Diz for me...
Somebody wrote "gypsy jazz - that's the sound you hear in heaven". I reckon they are probably right. -Tony
A little more RE the above - Ian Cruickshank also brought Raphael Fays over, saw him in a church somewhere in London c. 1983, playing with his father...
Of course no internet or email then, letters were written by hand, I have some correspondence from 1981/1982 with Ian about who best to listen to, the general French scene, etc. etc. For LP purchases there was mail order but I never used it - got my GJ LPs from specialist shops like Dobells or Mole Jazz (in London) or, purchased - and sometimes signed - from the artists at gigs. Different times!
Some related links:
A Diz Disley folk club performance c.1971, part 1 of four, audio only but still good fun (1968 date in the cover art is incorrect): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl5GZ9c1W_A (you can find the remainder easily)
More on Diz here (including 3 photos by myself, various occasions): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diz_Disley
Some information on Ian Cruckshank here: https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/15583/ian-cruickshank/p1 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Cruickshank
A couple of albums purchased from the artists at that time... https://www.discogs.com/Waso-Live-In-Laren/master/973751 and https://www.discogs.com/Rapha%C3%ABl-Fays-Night-In-Caravan/release/5069523
No publicly available details available for Ian Cruicksank's original "Gypsy Jazz From France" cassette it seems, I might put up a scan of his own notes that came with it, they are pretty interesting...
I have tapes I made of Häns'che Weiss quintet at the 1975 Cambridge Folk Festival (virtually unlistenable though), Waso live at Sevenoaks c. 1982 (much better), and Bireli Lagrene at Cambridge 1985 (off BBC broadcast, excellent quality). Not digitised as yet, but could be...
Cheers - Tony
No publicly available details available for Ian Cruicksank's original "Gypsy Jazz From France" cassette it seems, I might put up a scan of his own notes that came with it, they are pretty interesting...
@TonyRees Thanks for this great collection of information on Ian. I remember hearing of him when I first got into the style ~18-20 years ago through his old hotclub.co.uk site. In fact, I think the first real django style lick I learned was on his starter page about the typical diminished "roll" lick moving up 3 frets at a time.
As I was looking at his wikipedia page (which from the earlier djangobooks post I understand we have you to thank for--so thanks!), I was left wondering what happened to the cassettes you spoke of. Has this cassette ever been digitized? I would be interested in hearing some of those older players at a time when it wasn't so "au courant" to be playing in this style. Also, please do put up a scan of the notes to the board here. I would be interested in reading them. I've always been a fan of the history and stories behind the music and to hear people who appreciate it write compelling reviews about it.
Thanks billyshakes for the comments... I digitized the original "Gypsy Jazz from France" in my own holdings a while back, perhaps could make it available via private request in a few days - drop me a line at tonyrees49 [at] gmail.com if interested. I might put some of the other (my original) recordings up on youtube as audio only, since I have done that for a few in the past. So stay tuned!