Django Reinhardt – 1949 Bluebird Djangology

Happy Valentines Day!

Bonjour! What’s more romantic than four dreamy eyes squinting hopelessly across a clumsy table in in a dimly-lit and over-priced Paris café? A hearty meal with a nice bottle of red wine. Some soft music. Oh blast! Here come those damned gypsies again! Oh well, at least there’s some excitement in this joint now. I can’t see a thing!

I have two offerings today from the legendary Django Reinhardt. I don’t normally offer formats other than mp3, but I have been experimenting with various formats and bit-rates and I have found that Windows Media Audio (wma) variable bit-rate is the most efficient for sound quality and file size when ripping older low-fi recordings: Download the Bluebird label Djangology in wma format. Feel free to post comments about the sound quality.

As noted by Mark Deming in the CD review below, this session was the first post-war collaboration between Reinhardt and Grappelli. Recorded in Rome, Italy in January and February of 1949, the session includes Gianni Safred on piano, Carlo Pecori on bass, and Aurelio De Carolis on drums.

Track Listing

1. I Saw Stars – Goodhart, Hoffman, Sigler – 3:30
2. After You’ve Gone – Creamer, Layton – 3:00
3. Heavy Artillery (Artillerie Lourde) – Reinhardt – 3:40
4. Beyond the Sea (La Mer) – Lawrence, Trenet – 4:16
5. Minor Swing – Grappelli, Reinhardt – 2:37
6. Menilmontant – Trenet – 3:03
7. Brick Top – Grappelli, Reinhardt – 3:44
8. Swing Guitars – Grappelli, Reinhardt – 2:54
9. All the Things You Are – Hammerstein, Kern – 2:54
10. Daphné – Grappelli, Reinhardt – 2:26
11. It’s Only a Paper Moon – Arlen, Harburg, Rose – 2:51
12. Improvisation on Pathétique (Andante) – Tchaikovsky – 3:44
13. The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise – Lockhart, Seitz – 2:52
14. Djangology – Grappelli, Reinhardt – 2:46
15. Où Es-Tu, Mon Amour? (Where Are You, My Love?) – Stern – 3:22
16. Marie – Berlin – 2:54
17. I Surrender, Dear – Barris, Clifford – 3:45
18. Hallelujah – Grey, Robin, Youmans – 3:09
19. Swing ‘42 – Reinhardt, Reisner – 2:26
20. I’ll Never Be the Same – Kahn, Malneck, Signorelli – 4:02
21. Honeysuckle Rose – Razaf, Waller – 3:59
22. Lover Man – Davis, Ramirez, Sherman – 3:11
23. I Got Rhythm – Gershwins – 2:44

CD review by Mark Deming:

In 1949, guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli performed together for the first time since the outbreak of World War II put an end to the classic lineup of the Quintet of the Hot Club of France, with the pair reuniting in an Italian recording studio and laying down a number of tunes with a solid local rhythm section. In 1961, 12 songs from those sessions were released in the United States by RCA Victor under the name Djangology (and with Grappelli’s name misspelled on the cover); this expanded CD reissue features 23 tunes recorded during Reinhardt and Grappelli’s Rome sessions.

Stylistically, this material doesn’t represent a dramatic departure from the material Reinhardt recorded in the 1930s (while he’d been experimenting with an electric guitar at the time, these are fully acoustic sessions), though there are glimmers of new ideas the great guitarist had picked up along the way, most notably a few bop-influenced solos. But Reinhardt’s trademark gypsy swing is still as effortlessly enthusiastic as ever, and his by-play with Grappelli is simply wonderful; the intuitive symmetry of their performances is a marvel, and it’s hard to imagine that these musicians had spent ten years apart, given the ease and finesse with which they work together. (Bassist Carlo Pecori and drummer Aurelio de Carolis support the soloists well without imposing their personalities too strongly on the arrangements, and pianist Gianni Safred’s free-spirited bounce meshes well with Reinhardt and Grappelli’s more adventurous swing.)

While the recording quality isn’t perfect, it’s noticeably better than the duo’s earlier sessions, and the remastering for this collection brings out the details without taking the edges out of the sound. Djangology is a lovely set of late-era performances from Django Reinhardt, and if it isn’t an ideal collection of his work, it’s certainly better (and better presented) than most Reinhardt CD’s currently on the market, and stands as further proof of the guitarist’s casual genius.