Gypsy jazz guitar is a genre based on the music of Django Reinhardt, a guitar player who overcame a severe disability to become a legend in jazz music. Most people have heard music by the Quintet du Hot Club de France or one of the gypsy jazz groups devoted to its style of music. Born in the 1930’s this group with Stephane Grapelli on violin, Django Reinhardt, Joseph Reinhardt and Roger Chaput on guitars and Louis Vola on bass, pioneered the concept of lead and rhythm guitar.
The group played popular jazz tunes of the time with Django and Grapelli alternating on the lead with the two other guitars playing rhythm and Vola playing walking bass figures. A drummer was never in the mix. They also wrote their own tunes, many of which have themselves become standards. Some of the group’s compositions include blue Drag, Minor Swing, Djangology, Django Rag, Django’s Blues, Django’s Tiger and Nuages.
The group’s violinist, Stephane Grapelli continued making music until his death in 1997 but the figure that has proved to be the inspiration of many gypsy jazz groups, Django Reinhardt only lived to be forty-three years old. Gypsy jazz has been behind the popularity of the Maccaferri and Selmer style guitars. The guitar that Django Reinhardt made famous was made by the Selmer company in Paris based on a revolutionary guitar design by Mario Maccaferri, one of the first generation of classical guitar players. Surprisingly, Maccaferri was never familiar with Django Reinhardt’s music.
As with all music associated with the tag “gypsy” the music is usually passed on directly from one musician to another. The Quintet Du Hot Club came out of an environment where playing music was simply a part of life. Each musician was both student and teacher. And there were not too many note readers among them. In fact Stephane Grapelli, a classically trained musician used breaks in the groups playing schedule to tutor Django in music. So every guitar player wanting to learn to play gypsy jazz is faced with learning the music of Django Reinhardt, as played by Django Reinhardt.
One element that made Django’s music unique was the fact that, due to an injury in a fire, Django played the guitar using only the first and second fingers of his left hand. This limited the range of notes available to him as he worked his way up and down the fretboard was severely limited. As a result of his injury, barre chords are not found in gypsy jazz guitar music. A close look at Django’s music will tell you he had little use for sevenths in his music.
If you want to listen to some contemporary gypsy jazz guitar, American groups devoted to the genre are Pearl Django and the John Jorgenson Quintet but Europe is still the place where there is most interest in this music, with groups like Hot Club of Hungary and Hot Club of France. If you want to learn to play gypsy jazz guitar, the ability to read tab would be a minimum requirement because there are many examples of Django’s music available as guitar tab.
By: Ricky Sharples
Jazz is an American art form whose roots date back to the mid-19th century slave songs and chants. The early 20th century saw the art form blossom as instrumental music in the southern United States, mainly along the Mississippi river and specifically New Orleans, Louisiana.
Early instrumental jazz combos of New Orleans varied in instrumentation. More often than not, these early jazz groups generally consisted of trumpet, clarinet, trombone, tuba and drums. This instrumentation became what is known as the “dixieland” combo, making its way up the Mississippi river to Chicago where the music became popularized by jazz greats such as Louis Armstrong.
Dixieland combos can be thought of as groups that play “polyphonic” improvisational music. Each instrument is independent of every other instrument, with each player creating separate musical improvisations based on known melodies, or “tunes” of the day.
The players of these early jazz combos each had a separate role within the group. The trumpet player was depended upon to state the melody of the song, while the clarinet would improvise complex lines above him. The trombonists role was to improvise or “fill in” the middle register with lines and notes that were essential to the chord changes of the song itself. The tuba player (or bass player) generally laid down root notes (and 5ths) of each chord on beats 1 and 3 of each measure. The tuba served as the harmonic anchor for the group. Lastly, it was the drummers role to keep everyone together by keeping a steady beat throughout the entirety of the song.
As jazz music developed throughout the 1940s and 1950s, jazz combo instrumentation began to become more standardized. The jazz “quintet” and “sextet” became very popular during this time. The quintet consisted of trumpet and alto (or tenor) sax as the main melodic instruments while the rhythm section (piano, bass and drums) took care of rhythm and harmony.
The sextet added a trombone to form what essentially was a three horn front line, with rhythm section accompaniment. The extra melodic instrument of the sextet made it possible for the horns to add more harmonic depth to the sound of the group. Each instrument had a role not only as a melodic voice, but also as an integral component of the harmonic structure as well.
Modern jazz combos consist of a variety of instrumentation – 4, 5 horn combos are common place. As the group grows in size however, the name “combo” is replaced by “band” or “little big band”.
The jazz combo has provided a musical and creative outlet for countless musicians over the last 100 years. The jazz combo continues to provide jazz musicians the opportunity to work together to make music not only as a group but also to develop their own voice as individual jazz improvisers. It is, and probably always will be, the perfect vehicle for learning the art of jazz improvisation.
By: James P Martin
Jazz became organized as a musical genre in the United States in the early 20th century, but its roots originated in the l9th century in the South. The Atlantic Slave Trade brought over half a million Africans to America and with them came musical influences from their native land. As African americans learned to play European instruments in the 19th century and developed their own styles of music, like the cakewalk. The Cakewalk is a combination of harmony and syncopation. It became very popular and caught on among white folk, and was played in minstrel shows.
Toward the end of the 19th century, a new style of music emerged called ragtime. After the abolition of slavery, opportunities to learn opened up to many African americans. However, there were not many job openings. Many talented African americans took jobs as musicians in minstral shows, in bars and clubs. Ragtime was created in the red-light districts of New Orleans and was a modifcation of the march, characterized by polyrhythms and syncopation. It was very upbeat and perfect for dancing. Ernest Hogan was a black entertainer who first recorded ragtime on sheet music in 1895. It became very popular music and was even adopted by white musicians in America and in Europe. The ragtime is considered the first type of jazz music.
The ragtime carried its popularity into the 20th century. Small jazz groups began to travel and eventually spread the music from coast to coast. Jazz even traveled across the seas. During World War I, the “Hellfighters” infantry band carried ragtime to Europe. By the 1920’s Jazz had become the dominant genre of music in America. Jazz was associated with parties, extravagent behavior and drinking. The peak of Jazz music in the first half of the century lasted from 1920 to 1933. Many believed it was the cause of moral decay in American society. This period was the dubbed “The Jazz Age.”
By the 1930’s ragtime had lost its novelty. A new grand and exaggerated form of jazz was introduced, the big band swing. Big band or swing jazz was composed of a very large section of brass and reed instruments and was headed by a bandleader or an arranger. Some of the most famous bandleaders were Duke Ellington and Glenn Miller.
In the 1940’s Swing Jazz introduced a string section and vocals to the big band. Swing jazz was broadcasted over the radio and soon travled to other countries. During World War II, for example, a collection of dissenting german youth known as the “swing kids” adopted swing jazz and swing culture. They would dance and play swing music in defiance to Hitler. He had forbidden any Swing Jazz or swing dancing because of its ties with African-Americans and Jews.
During the 1950’s a type of jazz called “cool jazz” was preferred. The 1950’s was a decade of conservatism and the jazz music of the period definitely reflected that. Cool jazz was a toned-down version of jazz, where the big band reduced in size and sound.
The 1960’s and 1970’s saw a new forms of jazz with the introduction of Latin cultural influence rock and roll and soul. In the 1960’s Afro-cuban jazz became popular, but was soon replaced by Brazilian Jazz. Latin jazz combined traditional jazz with unconventional instruments like bongos, morracas and different types of flute. Into the 1970’s soul jazz was formed from a mixture of soul, blues and gospel music. The unique thing about soul jazz was that the solo instrument was typically an organ, which was very new to jazz music. Finally the 1970’s saw a rise in rock and roll. Jimmy Hendrix was famous for infusing jazz with rock and roll and established a form of jazz- jazz infusion. In the recent history jazz has been experimented with and a plethora of subgenres have emerged like, pop fusion or “smooth jazz”, jazz rap, nu jazz and even vocal jazz.
By: L Law