Django Reinhardt
Musician · 1910–1953 · Liberchies, Belgium
Best known for
Songwriter
Django Reinhardt was a Belgian-born Romani guitarist who, working in Paris from the early 1930s onward, invented the gypsy-jazz idiom — the swinging, two-guitar-and-violin sound he and Stéphane Grappelli forged with the Quintette du Hot Club de France. He played his signature improvisations with only two functioning fingers on his fretting hand after a 1928 caravan fire.
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- Born Jean Reinhardt on January 23, 1910, in a Romani caravan parked outside Liberchies, Belgium; his father was a basket-maker and musician.
- Grew up traveling Western Europe with the Manouche Romani community; was playing violin, banjo, and guitar professionally by his early teens.
- Was severely burned in a November 1928 fire in the caravan he shared with his wife; the fourth and fifth fingers of his left hand were rendered useless.
- Spent two years relearning guitar with two fingers and developed the fast, single-note runs and three-fingered chord voicings that became his signature.
- Heard Louis Armstrong’s “Dallas Blues” recording and turned permanently to jazz.
- Founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with violinist Stéphane Grappelli in 1934; the group was the first European jazz combo to win an international following.
- Recorded with Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Rex Stewart, and Bill Coleman during their Paris stays.
- Briefly toured the United States with Duke Ellington’s orchestra in 1946.
- Composed more than a hundred songs, including “Minor Swing,” “Nuages,” “Daphne,” and “Belleville.”
- Died of a brain hemorrhage in Fontainebleau, France on May 16, 1953, at age 43.
