Jazz la gitane vol. 2 - Gypsy Jazz Around The World
SAG0059 2011-01-18
Track List
Hallelujah! - 2:19
Première Idée D\'Eddie - 3:22
Bei Dir War Es Immer So Schön (1941) - 2:33
Bei Dir War Es Immer So Schön (1941) - 3:05
Bugle Call Rag - 2:24
Blues En Mineur - 2:52
Opus Five - 2:50
Harlem Swing - 3:35
Nuages - 2:57
Swing 42 - 2:29
Limehouse Blues - 3:06
Prise De Courant - 2:23
Bai Bai Blu (Bye Bye Blues) - 3:01
My Gal Sal - 3:03
El Baile De Los Negritos - 2:59
I Can\'t Give You Anything But Love - 3:04
Sweet Georgia Brown (1941) - 3:10
Sweet Georgia Brown (1945) - 2:31
Sweet Georgia Brown (1946) - 2:54
Minor Blues - 2:59
My Serenade - 3:19
So It Is - 3:52
Milk Shake - 2:58
Manoir de mes rêves (Django\'s Castle) - 3:49
Musicians
01 Hallelujah! (V. Youmans, L. Robin, C. Grey) 2’16
Svenska Hotkvintetten
Stockholm, 1939.
02 Première idée d'Eddie (Japanese Sandman) 3’19
(H. Rostaing, E. Ruault, R. A. Whiting, R. B. Egan)
Hubert Rostaing et Son Orchestre
Paris, 31 March 1942.
03 Bei Dir War Es Immer so Schön 2’30
(T. Mackeben – from the musical comedy “Anita und der Teufel”)
Helmut Zacharias und Seine Solisten
Berlin, 29 Nov. 1941.
04 Bei Dir War Es Immer so Schön (T. Mackeben) 3’02
Django Reinhardt et Son Grand Orchestre (Django Reinhardt avec Fud Candrix et Son Orchestre)
Brussels, 16 April 1942.
05 Bugle Call Rag (E. Schoebel, J. Pettis, B. Meyers) 2’21
Svend Asmussen Trio
Copenhagen, 1937.
06 Blues en mineur (D. Reinhardt) 2’49
Django Reinhardt
Brussels, 16 April 1942.
07 Opus Five (C. Shavers) 2’48
String Swing
Oslo, 11 June 1941.
08 Harlem Swing (G. Deloof) 3’33
Gus & Gus (Gus Viseur & Gus Deloof)
Brussels, June 1942.
09 Swing 42 (D. Reinhardt, S. Grappelli) 2’27
Quintette du Club Rythmique de Belgique (Quintette du Hot Club de Belgique)
Brussels, c. Sep. 1942.
10 Limehouse Blues (P. Braham, D. Furber) 3’03
Stephane Grappelly with The Hatchett's Swingtet
London, 1943.
11 Prise de courant (C. Hary, arr. M. Warlop) 2’20
Michel Warlop et Son Ensemble
Paris, Nov. 1943.
12 Bai Bai Blu (Bye Bye Blues) (F. Hamm, D. Bennett, B. Lown, C. Gray) 2’58
Tre Italiani in America (Gorni Kramer con accompagnamento ritmico)
Milan, 29 Dec.1940.
13 My Gal Sal (P. Dresser) 3’01
Reuben Solomon and His Jive Boys
Calcutta, c. Sep. 1942.
14 El Baile de Los Negritos (The Darktown Strutters' Ball) (S. Brooks) 2’56
Louis Vola del Quinteto del Hot Club de Francia
Buenos Aires, c. Jan.-Feb. 1944.
15 I Can't Give You Anything but Love (J. McHugh, D. Fields) 3’01
Sarane Ferret et Son Quartette
Paris, c. Feb. 1944.
16 Sweet Georgia Brown (B. Bernie, M. Pinkard, K. Casey) 3’07
Oscar Aleman y Su Quinteto de Swing
Buenos Aires, Nov. 1941.
17 Sweet Georgia Brown (B. Bernie, M. Pinkard, K. Casey) 2’29
Jerry Thomas Swingtet (featuring Marcel Bianchi)
Basel, c. March 1945.
18 Sweet Georgia Brown (B. Bernie, M. Pinkard, K. Casey) 2’51
Miller Sextet
Hilversum, 14 June 1946.
19 Minor Blues (D. Reinhardt) 2’57
Jam-Session n° 4
Paris, 19 Nov. 1946.
20 My Serenade (T. Kärki) 3’16
Rytmin Swing-Yhtye, Joht. Toivo Kärki
Helsinki, May 1946.
21 So It Is (E. Christiani, arr. F. Poptie) 3’49
Vincentino
Hilversum, 23 April 1949.
22 Milk Shake (H. Rostaing) 2’55
Hubert Rostaing et Sa Jam-Session
Paris, 4 July 1947.
23 Manoir de mes rêves (D. Reinhardt) 3’46
Django Reinhardt et le Quintette du Hot Club de France
Paris, 13 Oct. or Nov. 1947.
24 Nuages (D. Reinhardt) 2’56
Jeanne Manet
Paris, 6 May 1943.
"Gypsy Jazz Around the World
Django Reinhardt was a lord and master of the guitar, and a composer of melodies some of which have become what are commonly called ‘standards’. But he was also a multi-instrumentalist capable of ‘doing nicely’ with the other tools of the
trade that were dear to jazz people.This lesser-known aspect of his personality is highlighted right from the beginning of this record. A photograph of Django Reinhardt shows him with a trumpet under his arm.
He certainly wasn’t holding it for the photographer’s benefit, so he must have been capable of playing it even if no recording exists to prove it. On the other hand, there’s another photograph where he can be seen blowing a slide trombone! There again, no record, more’s the pity. Fortunately, there is a recording in which the ‘amazing gypsy’ takes an ‘archeggiato’ chorus on the bass-fiddle that was completely in keeping with the tradition of bassists playing in the gypsy orchestras, where Louis Vola, who didn’t have the slightest drop of gypsy blood in his body, made this his speciality. Released under Hubert Rostaing’s name, Première idée d’Eddie, based on Japanese Sandman, is one of those jamsessions ‘à la Delaunay’ on the Swing label whose chaotic side is often balanced by the pleasant turn taken by neatly cut-and-dried improvising. This ‘first idea’ of Eddie Barclay’s was signed with typically- French narrow-mindedness, a common procedure under the Occupation, when Jewish and Anglo- American writers and composers were banned by
the ‘Fritzes’. Contrary to the indications in some discographies, there’s not a shadow of a piano in this piece.
Like many gypsy artists, Django Reinhardt always had an attraction for minor keys; hence this Blues en mineur from Brussels where, accompanied only by Belgian pianist Ivon De Bie,Django has an escapade not only on the guitar, but also on violin, the instrument of his younger days, when the music of the flamboyant East once again left its seal. A
surreptitious oriental drift towards the Old Continent.
So it’s obvious that amelody like Bei DirWar Es Immer so Schön would fit Django like a glove, especially when it had the support of the melodic sections of a big-band led by Belgian jazz pioneer Alexis ‘Fud’ Candrix. If you want to play with comparisons, you can put this version up against the one recorded in the same period by German violinist Helmut
Zacharias (or Zaccharias). The latter enjoyed celebrity in the post-war years thanks to popular music, but during the conflict he defended jazz against hell and high, brown-shirted waters, regardless of the war’s bombings. His original sextet, with Italian pianist Ernesto Romanoni (from Tullio Mobiglia’s band) playing harpsichord and celesta, also contained three guitarists (one Italian, one Hungarian and one Armenian), and it had a sound much like the HCF Quintet orMichel Warlop’s groups, not to mention Artie Shaw’s Gramercy Five.
Even if they were inspired by the famous Quintet of the Hot Club de France, European and transatlantic string combos still challenged orthodoxy and servile imitations, and here and there they showed some extremely welcome initiatives. There
were themen of the north to start with,and they start this CD, too.“Hallelujah! Saint Erik be blessed… just a name-check in Volume 1, but in Volume 2 we finally get to play!” they cried (in Swedish). The Svenska Hotkvintetten (or ‘Quintet of the Hot Club of Sweden’), together with the remarkable violinist Emil Iwring (1912-1999) ,make no effort to hide their debt
towards the illustrious French quintet, but they also make no bones about asserting their differences in all their recorded pieces, presenting two solo guitarists whose conceptions bear strong distinctions.
If Sven Stiberg plainly shows allegiance to Django, Folke Eriksberg was a strong supporter of the‘American’ style of guitar chord-playing. It makes their exchanges quite thrilling.If you look at their Norwegian neighbours, there was singer-guitarist Freddy Valier, the founder of the String Swing group and a Viking whose mother was French; when he gave up leading his quintet to concentrate on other activities, it was Robert Normann,a guitar phenomenon,who picked up the
reins (reindeer?) and who in 1941 replaced the guitar with a vibraphone.Red Norvo,Lionel Hampton and other small, Goodman-like combinations had obviously had their influence. In Denmark there was violinist Svend Asmussen, who’d been a disciple of Joe Venuti before becoming a staunch Stuff Smith supporter, turning his attentions to the States rather
than to central Europe. Svend adopted a clarinetviolin- vibraphone-rhythm format that spawned rapidly in the northern hemisphere of the Old World.
His 1937 Bugle Call Rag, however shows Asmussen in a string trio that reminds you of the sound of those little ‘chamber-jazz’ ensembles first created by the French – even if the violinist, somewhere along the way, put his pen down on the piano to indulge in some keyboard capers. Asmussen, too, was something of a multi-instrumentalist.
An earthquake shook the world of strings. Electricity had fathered the vibraphone, and it was the turn of the guitar and the violin to be electrified.
Groups featuring the latter were going to be asking themselves some serious questions. From now on, not only would they have a free hand and more authority,but they could also allow themselves a little more daring.Countries occupied by the Nazi hordes wouldn’t discover these novelties until the war was over, but elsewhere the electric guitar was winning
many converts, conquered by the freedom of expression it allowed. In 1945, on Sweet Georgia Brown, by drummer Jerry Thomas’ Swiss Swingtette, Marcel Bianchi (1911-1997) recorded his first solo on the electric instrument, where new guitar-God Charlie Christian’s aura mingles with the initial influence of the gypsy-genius.When peace returned again, the brothers Joseph and Django Reinhardt were very keen to experiment with this strange object and at first the younger had more success than the elder. Joseph Reinhardt wanted to stand apart from his great, great brother through more
personal experiments,both on acoustic and electric guitars, as you can hear from his solos in this Harlem Swing by the two Belgians named Gus, Viseur and Deloof, solos that are elegant, variegated contributions and, on Milk Shake, by Hubert Rostaing’s Jam-Session,which is a hot,punchy piece.
Henri Crolla, a man of keen artistic sensibility, was to resort to amplification some time later. In 1946 he played a Selmer-Maccaferri guitar with pianist Léo Chauliac’s trio-quartet, and took part in one of the Delaunay-esque jam-sessions for the Swing series: at the beginning and end of Django’s Minor Blues, the finesse of his racy variations magnifies the Reinhardt
touch and turns it into sparkling Impressionism.
After staying in Paris ‘durante un tiempo’, Argentinean guitarist Oscar Aleman (1909-1980) returned to his native country when war broke out in Europe. He recorded a whole series of records for Odeon in Buenos Aires with a small group combining local musicians and violinist Hernan Oliva from Chile. His use of a metal-bodied guitar with a pick-up (the
American ‘dobro’ conceived by the Dopyera brothers), produced a sound that showed some progress over the acoustic guitar,and made Aleman an ideal middle-man between acoustic and electric guitars. It’s useful to compare his version of the greatly-solicited Sweet Georgia Brown with those of Jerry Thomas & Marcel Bianchi (in Basle) and the Miller Sextet led by guitarist Ab de Molenaar (in Hilversum), where Jan Doedel (vln) and Coen van Nassau (vib) stood out, and an adolescent Pia Beck made her debut. It’s a good example of the contests between instrumental combinations in the same trend. The same goes for Stéphane Grappelly (in London) and Michel Warlop (in Paris), who were simultaneously friends and competitors. In that same period, although they were probably unaware of it, both were recording independently with similar groups, playing the same kind of music where jazz and classical reminiscences went well together,with the unusual instrumentation paying its dues to the chamber music that had spread through Europe for centuries (cf. “Stéphane Grappelli, Saga Jazz 18). Limehouse Blues comes from the BBC’s sound archives, and this is its first release in France. Prise de courant is also the French word for an electric plug, and you can hear the sparks fly when this kind of team makes contact.
Another rare piece: I Can’t Give You Anything but Love was cut by Sarane Ferret in 1944 for the ABCJazz Club Français, the same goldseam that produced the J’en ai marre that appeared in Volume 1. From orchestras in five-star hotels in the cities of the devil (Reuben Solomon and his Jive Boys, Anglo-Filipino refugees from Rangoon after Japanese troops invaded Burma, the exiled ‘Loulou’ Vola and his companions from Chile and the Argentine) to groups that were closer to home but just as little-known (Gorni Kramer, the Italian Gus Viseur,guitarist Cosimo di Ceglie,clarinettist Henri Van Bernst’s Belgian Hot Club Quintette), the ‘French touch’ never ceased scattering its benefits.
Gradually, the electric guitar relegated its acoustic big sister to a supporting role. The spread of bebop here and there also had something to do with it. The old guitar was to take its revenge several decades later; but for the moment, in the second half of the Forties, it was the new girl (so new, so pretty) who asserted her supremacy. Radio broadcasts lentmomentumto the wheels of fortune; on the airwaves, the air was electric! In the groups appearing on Dutch and Finnish radio, where the influence of Benny Goodman’s Sextet completed the surrounding Djangoism,Vincentino, led by gypsy violinist Frans Poptie, and Rytmin Swing-Yhtye led by pianist Toivo Kärki, presented the electric guitars of Eddie Christiani and Viljo Immonen.Note that Kärki’s Serenade has nothing to do with Reinhardt’s.When Django played with his QdHCdF on Saturday nights at French Radio ‘surprise-parties’ (sic), he played his electrified guitar, on Manoir de mes rêves for example (Django’s Castle in the USA). So this record, over which Django Reinhardt’s shadow hovers like a guardian, closes with the Great Gypsy’s two most popular ballads. Reinhardt’s Nuages of 1940 was appreciated so much that it quickly became a song performed by Lucienne Delyle, Danielle Darrieux, Yves Montand and others… Among its most secret versions is the one sung by the forgotten singer Jeanne Manet, who gave it the melancholy touch that was so fitting for a farewell.
Pierre Lafargue (July 2003)
Thanks to Alain Antonietto, Arnaud Boubet, Ivan Députier, Iwan Frésart, Pekka Gronow, Rainer E. Lotz, Adriano Mazzoletti,Daniel Nevers and Robert Pernet.
