“Minor Swing” is credited to Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli and was first recorded by the Quintette du Hot Club de France in Paris on 25 November 1937, with Reinhardt on guitar, Grappelli on violin, Joseph Reinhardt and Eugène Vées on rhythm guitars, and Louis Vola on double bass. It was issued on the Swing label as number 23 and is regarded as one of Reinhardt’s signature compositions.
The piece is in A minor. After a short introduction of arpeggios and before a closing coda, it is a repeating cycle of chord changes over which the soloists improvise, and it has been described as a vehicle for soloists to quote from Reinhardt’s own recorded melodies.
Reinhardt played the tune again on later occasions, according to the list compiled by his biographer Charles Delaunay: in Paris in March 1947 for a French radio broadcast, where it went by the title “No Name Blues”; in Paris on 29 August 1947 with the clarinetist Maurice Mernier; in Brussels in December 1948 with the clarinetist Hubert Rostaing; in Rome in early 1949 with Grappelli; and in Rome in 1950 with the clarinetist André Ekyan.
