Reinhardt Django, “Night and

Day”.
Student: Carlos Joseph

Recorded in London on Jan. 31, 1938

Django Reinhardt et le Quintette du Hot Club de France, with Stéphane Grappelli

Django Reinhardt (guitar solo)

Stéphane Grappelli ( Violin)
Roger Chaput, (guitar accompany)
Eugène Vées (guitar accompany)
Louis Vola ( bass)

https://libproxy.library.unt.edu:2452/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Crecorded_track%7C70
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Track 2

• 02:55 to 03:06 Short intro of couple measure by Django.

• 03:06 to 03:27 Main theme or A section played by Stéphane
• 03:28 to 03:49 Stéphane repeat the main the again with some variation and Django filling
with some dissonant chords.
• 03:49 to 04:10 Stéphane played the bridge, or the B section
• 04:11 to 04:53 Django is taking a guitar solo over the A section twice.
• 04:53 to 05:13 Django is improvising in the B section
• 05:14 to 05:29 Stéphane played the B section, but with some improvisation fragment and the
accompany answers him with some rhythm break.
• 05:30 to 05:35 they interrupted the return of the melody with accelerated rhythm going
quickly to the end due of the length of track in those time.

This is a example of a hot jazz tune played in the Guitar, and not just that, is also the first time
in that era that the group was leading by guitar player and bandleader. This tune was composed
by Cole Porter’s “Night and Day” was written for the 1932 musical Gay Divorce. It is among
the most popular standards from the American Song Book played by Gypsy jazzers.

How it listen in the recording, this group was leading by Django Reinhardt as bandleader and
many time took the as lead as the melody of tune. But another musician as well who collaborated
in the group was Stéphane Grapelli violin player.
Django Reinhardt, born (Liberchies, nr Luttre, Belgium, 23 Jan 1910) and died in
(Fontainebleau, France, 16 May 1953). French guitarist, brother of Joseph Reinhardt and father
of Babik Reinhardt. He first played violin and later took up guitar, and began working
professionally in 1922 with the accordionist Guérino. At the age of 17 Reinhardt married
Florine "Bella" Mayer, a girl from the same gypsy settlement, according to gypsy custom
(although not an official marriage under French law). He nearly lost his life when the caravan
he and his wife lived in caught fire when he knocked over a candle on his way to bed. His wife
made artificial flowers from extremely flammable “celluloid”. They caught fire, engulfing the
wagon in flames almost immediately. Reinhardt dragged himself and his wife through the fire to
safety, but suffered extensive burns on his left hand and other areas. He received first- and
second-degree burns over half his body. His right leg was paralyzed, and the fourth and fifth
fingers of his left hand were badly burned. Doctors believed that he would never play guitar
again, and they intended to amputate one of his legs, but Reinhardt refused to have the surgery
and left the hospital after a short time; he was able to walk within a year with the aid of a cane.

Django, recorded “Night and Day” in Jan. 31, 1938 when he was 28 years old. Is very
important to to highlight how importance is to have a good brother and friend, Joseph Reinhardt
helped a lot in the recuperation of Django his brother give him a new guitar which later pioneer
of a new Jazz style called Gipsy jazz. Joseph was one of the first guitar player in “le Quintette
du Hot Club de France.” A the that Django made the recording with the Quintette, he was
established as the first outstanding European jazz musician, a stylist with great melodic
resourcefulness and a mastery of inflection. He was a gifted composer of short evocative pieces
and had a flair for pacing a performance so that the maximum variety could be wrung from it
without compromising its homogeneity. One of the major event at that time was that the
Jewish parents begin sending their children to the United Kingdom in December with the hope
that their children can escape some of the German persecution. The rescue efforts were called
"Kinder-transport" and save up to 10,000 children. In United States was in the Great Depression
at that time. After surviving the war years in Nazi-occupied France and Belgium despite his
imperiled status as an ethnic Roma, Reinhardt made his only tour of the United States in 1946 as
a featured soloist with the Ellington Orchestra. Reinhardt came back to Europe after meeting
will all this giants musician which he learned so much, he started to incorporated Bebop to
Europe.

Reinhardt is a big inspiration, no just as musician also as a person. He took his disadvantage so
far that started to influence other guitar player as Joe Pass and others.That make me think how
hard he worked to get the three fingers technique, and to play those notes so fast. Knowing more
the history of the recording it make me appreciated more, and would be difficult to forget this
tune, because when you make a research, itself make you know more in depth the tune. Of
course “Night and Day” have so many version, but the prolongation of the first note the the
violinist Stéphane played give the song another color, another accent, which is characteristic of
Jazz was well the elaboration of the solos with two guitars along the bass quite interesting. I
learned that jazz is not just style of music which you can improvise if not was well the voice of
so many people who couldn't speak with word, but they had the opportunity to express with the
instrument long with they hearts.

Works cited
Benjamin Givan . "Reinhardt, Django." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University
Press, accessed October 18, 2017,

Michael James, et al. "Reinhardt (ii)." The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd ed.. Grove Music Online.
Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed October 18, 2017,

Fogg, Rod. Django Reinhardt: Know the Man, Play the Music, Hal Leonard Corp. (2005) accessed
October 18, 2017,

Kater, Michael H. Different Drummers: Jazz in the Culture of Nazi Germany, Oxford Univ. Press
(1992) p. 178, accessed October 18, 2017,

Deane L. Root and Gerald Bordman. "Porter, Cole." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford
University Press, accessed October 18, 2017,