Search - Django Reinhardt :: Djangology

Django

Jazzcat | Genoa, Italy Italy | 06/28/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Simply Django finally in a very well recorded edition. So it's something fantastic believe me. It is simply a marvellous listening experience, I searched for this record for some time and finally I have it in my hands... Oh Django! Some people are afraid of listening to Django because they have the impression that this music could be "dated", not trendy anymore. This music is brilliant and Django is forever! He was like Parker, Gillespie, Powell on their own instrument. Guitar (and even Jazz in a sense) has never been the same after Django. It is a boppish kind of session. It is still a classical Grappelli - Reinhardt cohoperation but it has been recorded in the late Django years (he died not few months after this recording) so he has already been exposed to the influence of bebop. He liked bebop (which music connossoir could dislike it?) and for a brief period he was even intimidated by bebop giants. But he was an unbelievable natural talent so in the end he started to play his own version of bebop incorporating it into his gitane music. Here you can find a lot of classic Django (Daphne, Minor swing), some very well known american standards (All the things you are, It's only a paper moon, After you've gone etc) in a small combo format. It's Django with Grappelli and few less known italian musicians who had the very lucky opportunity to play with the master. It is a sort of very appropriate introduction to Django's music, maybe together with the double Verve cd "Peche a la mouche" which I suggest too. It is sublime, very romantic but also very skyrocketing at some point. Django is unforgettable. he was really mature in his style, very in control, unbelievably virtuosistic but even melodic, as he has always been by the way ,... but here you can appreciate his talent in a very well remastered edition of some of his best music. Highly suggested!!!!!"

Greatest Guitarist Ever! Great Packaging! Good Sound!

Frederick Baptist | Singapore | 11/15/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"No less a guitar great than Les Paul has declared Django the best guitarist that there has ever been. Les Paul should know as he's lived through many of them including Eddie Van Halen. From a guy who totally improvised great solo after great solo at speeds that Eddie could only reach by using his two-handed technique, Django just used the two working fingers of his left hand. Incredible! I used to own the old 2-disc "Djangologie" covering his material prior to this period and although his playing was great to hear, the hiss and bad recording wasn't so I'm glad although we have here the '49 version and only 23 tracks, the sound quality is vastly improved and is decent considering what must have been the condition of the original master after all these years. I also like the cardboard packaging and the liner notes. If you like to hear great jazz guitar played in the acoustic style, this is the one to get. Recommended."

Great music...but only decent CD

Comic Online | Washington, DC United States | 12/20/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"First off, this music is great. Reinhardt's reunion with Stephane Grappelly is a worthy addition to his library. While not quite as good to these ears as his mid/late 30's recordings, they're still pretty good.



My only problem is with the sound quality of the CD itself. I'm assuming it's probably just the original source material, though it could be a mastering issue. The sound, while good for the most part, does seem a bit distorted in portions. It's sometimes scratchy, and you can hear instruments bloom and distort from time to time, moreso on the high & loud notes. I have many recordings from this era, and they typically sound better than this. This WAS recorded in Italy, and i'm not aware of what the Italian studios were like in the late 40s. Perhaps they didn't have quite the sound capability that American studios had at the time. Perhaps the originals were not stored well in Italy. I don't know.



It's not a bad enough problem to make me not want to listen to it, but it is unfortunate that i have some Benny Goodman Trio recordings from 10 years earlier that sound cleaner than this. I never buy bootleg recordings...only the ones released by the owning companies, who utilize original source materials. That having been said, i'm a bit disappointed. While i would still recommend this CD, i would also recommend some of the earlier Reinhardt stuff, especially from the late 30s. The sound quality on those is at least as good as the stuff on this 1949 disc."