Gypsy Jazz

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Time for a break with ‘Gypsy Jazz’ creator Django Reinhardt and sometimes collaborator Stephane Grappelli.

(Minor Swing)

https://youtu.be/VpmOTGungnA

(Dark Eyes)

(Minor Swing cover in Spain)

(Dark Eyes)

The more orchestrated and complex versions are interesting and really show what good musicians can do with a basic tune. That said, there’s a purity to the originals I really like. I can almost see them sitting around a fire in a gypsy camp or some tiny club in Europe in the 1930’s smoking cigarettes, knocking back some drinks and playing tunes like this till all hours.

18 thoughts on “Gypsy Jazz”

  4. Thanks, we caught some good covers in Paris and Amsterdam during the reprise some years ago (I guess closely following that Johnny Depp movie) and we enjoyed it. Enough so that we bought a three or four CD collection. The wife likes to have it on when she whips up a paella.

  7. Anita O’ Day…man, they sure dressed right in them days.

    Too bad I was in diapers and couldn’t enjoy it. Mebbe they’ll get back to it before I’m once again in nappies. But I digress. Zappa was the key for me as well. Go to a rock concert, get the Brecker Brothers and “Stolen Moments”.

  8. I also attended a Stefan Grapelli concert several decades ago. He also played piano in the concert.

  11. Yeah, Django; who showed the music world that the violin and the concertina could be perfectly fine as jazz instruments. And played his guitar while missing three fingers on one hand.
    Got lucky years back and found most his music on CDs. Then my sister, one of the musicians in the family, visited and when she left they went missing.

  13. Damn meant to say played with three fingers, arrgghh

    Wife and I got lucky once while stopping in NO; we were walking down the street in the afternoon waiting for the clubs to open. We stopped to see if we could get a coke in the only place with an open door. Old black dude by himself in the place fiddlin’ on the piano. So we started talking while he played around. ‘Bout half way through the conversation I figured out that we were getting a private concert by Fats Domino. Oh my yes… good time.

  16. Ah, opiates.

    My romance with hard bop faded with the disavowal of the “Buk” lifestyle and the winds of political change. An associate lived upstairs from Sonny Rollins. “Ever see him?” “never during the day”.

  18. Yes, I think in general, jazz musician was a career that came with a comparatively poor health outlook and low life expectancy.

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