——— ROSE ROOM = DJANGO REINHARDT Django Reinhardt's musical disciples are not only jazz guitarists. He inspired blues players like B.B, King, classical guitarist Julian Bream, country pickers Chet Atkins, Grady Martin and Willie Nelson, and rockers like Carlos Santana. He could not read music and could barely write his own name, and he often failed to show at scheduled appearances (even at Camegie Hall). Yet, nearly half a century alter his death, Reinhardt's recordings sell, and his legend continues to grow. Born January 23, 1910 in a gypsy caravan in Belgium, near the French border, Jean Baptiste Reinhardt taught himself guitar and banjo and was playing in Paris dance halls at the age of thir- teen. At the age of eighteen his left hand was so badly burned in a fire at the caravan that his ring finger and little finger were left barely usable; yet he became the fastest single-note guitarist of his time. In 1930, when he was playing in pop bands, Reinhardt was deeply affected by recordings of the Lang/Venuti duets, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. A few years later, he was playing jazz in Paris with his Quintet of the Hot Club of France, performing standards and original instrumentals. Reinhardt gained international fame with this band. in the Quintet, he was backed by two other acoustic guitars, a bass and the extraordinary violinist Stephane Grappelli. The guitarists played the oddly-shaped Maccaferri instrument with a single cut- away. During the war, when Grappelli was in England, the group included jazz clarinetist Hubert Rostaing. Reinhardt, the premiere jazz artist of Europe, also recorded with American jazz stars ‘Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter, and had opportunities to jam with Armstrong, Ellington and others. His reputation spread, and when the war was over, he toured in the United States. Reinhardt continued to perform and record until his death in 1953. In his later years he switched to electric guitar and incorporated bebop sounds into his music, but he is most remembered for his acoustic playing with the Quintet. His ad-lib soloing featured long single-note lines, string-bending, percussive octaves and chords, and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of jazz ideas. Standing on Eddie Lang's shoulders, he took the guitar to new heights as a soloing instrument PERFORMANCE NOTES “Rose Room,” the song with which Benny Goodman failed to stump Charlie Christian in 1939 (see the Honeysuckle Rose chapter), is a 32-bar tune consisting of a 16-bar melody that is repeated with different ending. Reinhardt’s solo, which he played with the Hot Club Quintet in 1937, takes us around the tune twice. The first time around, he played and embellished the melody; the second 16 bars are filled with brilliant, improvised, Djangoesque jazz ideas. These are worth looking at in detail, since Reinhardt blazed a trail for single-note soloists. His distinctive backup is also noteworthy. SWING BACKUP TECHNIQUE Reinhardt usually employed two of his guitarist brothers in the Quintet to aggressively strum backup chords, four beats to the bar, while he soloed. During violin or clarinet solos, he joined them, and then there ware three gypsies fiercely strumming Maccaferri guitars. Like Eddie Lang, they played four downstrokes per bar, but they included more incidental upstrokes and occasional chord flourish- es than Lang: Basic Backup Patter or Or TD) TA Tras, & . Raat a x Rode Roam 4Roote Dinah )o FFE Augmented Seale Ga FH BhiF ore. Fic [AE (Major Sale) Be bbe ‘ Root Xx Dinah* 3Bridge He Fe Ave Ft Fem ot pop D7 #7 ET AA (Major Seale) Bhmt (minor seale) Roots = &Dinah¥ 2 =Trade F ——— DINAH =" WORDS BY SAM M. LEWIS AND JOE YOUNG MUSIC BY HARRY AKST Onn Oo On Ow Quo Gun ve oderate Swings = 18 ‘ wor ow wo ® vectra = ee © 1925 MILLS MUSIC, INC. © Renewed MORLEY MUSIC CO.,.B 4 G AKST PUBLISHING CO., and MILLS MUSIG, INC. ‘All Rights Reserved ROOTS * Dinah* 4 12Bae R® rene aiay eye) Cowie eee eg eye yee iat hap ohaeal 8g el) Some oi ow eee (iene e ean) ==] "ha MONEY SuUCELE ROSE sRGAre doing ais APR [adepzjzes dn jrhiy) Reson beads ic HAL*LEONARD®