Happy Django Day!
Gypsy guitar lives on in Houston, and around the world, often deep underground.
On this day in 1910, Jean “Django” Reinhardt was born — Europe’s first and still most influential and beloved jazz musician. (And quite likely Belgium’s greatest gift to the world; greater still than “French” fries and Stella Artois and competitive cycling.)
His Gypsy spin on American jazz can be found everywhere now, but most prominently for Texans, in the guitar playing and, hell, the entire musical essence of Willie Nelson.
Six years ago Nelson teamed up with Merle Haggard to record a tribute to two of their fountainhead influences: Reinhardt and Jimmie Rodgers. It was the first time (and the last ever) they would record together after the Pancho & Lefty sessions, and while both were acolytes of the Singing Brakeman, Nelson was just even more profoundly shaped by Reinhardt. (Django’s influence on Haggard was hard to detect.)
Here is what Willie has said about Django:
This was a man who changed my musical life by giving me a whole new perspective on the guitar and, on an even more profound level, on my relationship with sound...During my formative years, as I listened to Django's records, especially songs like “Nuages” that I would play for the rest of my life, I studied his technique. Even more, I studied his gentleness. I love the human sound he gave his acoustic guitar."
My dad has seen many and maybe even most of the top guitarists of the second half of the Twentieth Century and I can’t recall him ever being more blown away by anybody than he was by Jeff Beck, who in turn, has called Django “quite superhuman” and "by far the most astonishing guitar player ever.”
As you can see from the still above, Reinhardt’s fretting hand was mangled — he lost the use of his ring finger and pinkie after almost burning to death in a caravan fire. Though still a teen, he was already a professional musician at the time, and he had to re-learn to play taking his handicap into account. Well, I guess you could say he was successful in that endeavor. All of the recordings from which his legend stems came after the accident.
It’s kind of incidental to his overall greatness, but had he not overcome that handicap, it’s possible that Tommy Iommi of Black Sabbath or Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead might never have had the courage to continue playing guitar after they lost fingers.
“His technique is awesome!” Garcia said. “Even today, nobody has really come to the state that he was playing at. As good as players are, they haven't gotten to where he is. There's a lot of guys that play fast and a lot of guys that play clean, and the guitar has come a long way as far as speed and clarity go, but nobody plays with the whole fullness of expression that Django has. I mean, the combination of incredible speed – all the speed you could possibly want – but also the thing of every note have a specific personality. You don't hear it. I really haven't heard it anywhere but with Django.”
And while we are on the subject of jam bands, the Allman Brothers’ “Jessica” was written by Dickie Betts as a tribute to Reinhardt…
A deep dive into Django-land is something I’ve always wanted to do but have yet to get around to doing, so I am taking today to dig in a bit, but also to spread the word about Romani jazz behind the scenes. Reinhardt is somewhat unusual in that he was willing to leave his culture and go mainstream. Some of his descendants and relatives have done likewise, and others have not.
And this culture of musicianship is everywhere where there are Romani people, including Houston. A few years ago a Facebook friend — Houston guitarist Michael Viteri — sent me this video of Houstonian Nicky Costello playing lead, and one of his brothers, first name unknown, on rhythm guitar.
As you can see, these guys are absolutely, 100 percent world-class musicians. While I’ve not seen as many of the greatest guitarists ever as my dad has, I’ve seen quite a few of the same guys he has, and a few he hasn’t, and…well, these guys are up there. Nobody alive in Houston during my run as Houston Press music editor was better than Nicky Costello as a lead guitarist, though Aaron Loesch gives him a run for his money, and that rhythm playing is phenomenal too.
So why haven’t you heard of them? Why aren’t they rich and famous?
A couple of reasons. First and foremost, they don’t want to be, at least not in “gadjo” culture. They just don’t care about getting adulation from outsiders; what they receive from within is enough. And so the only places they play are at Gypsy gatherings (because they refer to themselves as such, I will also use the word), and in the case of these Costellos, many of these gatherings are in church or on Christian retreats, like this one.
In reading the comments, you get a tantalizing peek into a whole hidden world. We see that this song is well-known among the Gypsies — even if it apparently has no name — and is believed to have been composed by a Romani guitarist known only as “Lolah,” who may or may not be French, may or may not be dead, and may or may not have spent some time in Chicago. (At some point in time.)
Googling gets you nowhere — there is a musician named Lolah, but she is neither French nor a Gypsy guitarist nor from Chicago. Not the same cat, in other words.
We also read that an American Gypsy named Bobby Johnson also has it in his repertoire.
Here we have a little more luck:
And what do you know, he’s as good or better than the Costellos!
Sure, I’d love to hear them professionally recorded and on the club / concert circuit, but I also admire them for giving absolutely zero shits about anything other than pure musicianship and the accolades of their own people. And hey, at least they’ve put this stuff on Youtube for the world to see. Even if they don’t care what I think about their music, I am grateful for the chance to see and hear it.
Oh, and here is the ecstatic culmination of a real-deal Big Fat Gypsy Wedding recorded in Houston in 2011.
The guitarist is the Argentine Alex Fox, a gadjo with a devoted Gypsy following.
(Sorry for the repeat of the Costello video below; there’s some kind of glitch with substack and I can’t get rid of it. But hell, why not watch it again?)