by Daniel Garcia
Daily Lobo
A few weeks ago, Marcella and Eva, the culture department girls par excellence, had a party that featured the sounds of Albuquerque's gypsy jazz revivalist quartet, Le Chat Lunatique. When describing these guys to others, the name Django Reinhardt always comes up as a comparison, but it is frequently met with a blank stare or drooling. OK, the latter has happened only once, but it was memorable enough to
mention here, and for good reason. Reinhardt played the guitar like none other before him, and considering he had only two good fingers with which to play leads, his legacy is something everyone should know about.
Reinhardt's influence on guitarists everywhere cannot be ignored. The common practice of differentiating between a rhythm and a lead guitarist comes from his band, which used a rhythm guitarist as a percussive device while Reinhardt played leads over it. It is said that one of Jimi Hendrix's bands, Band of Gypsys, was named in honor of him. Reinhardt even played a posthumous role in Woody Allen's "Sweet and Lowdown" as the idol of fictional guitarist
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Emmet Ray.
Reinhardt, a Belgian Sinto, was born in 1910. He had an impoverished upbringing and was handicapped early in his life as a result of a house fire, which left his chording hand with the functionality of only two fingers. A musician from a young age,
Reinhardt quickly taught himself to play the guitar again, arguably becoming the most prominent and influential jazz guitarist in the world. This, in combination with the fact that he wasn't even American and that he was crippled, makes his story that much more astounding.
Reinhardt teamed up with violinist Stephane Grappelli to form Quintette du Hot Club de France. The quintet broke up as a result of World War II, but the aforementioned musicians provided the framework for a later
incarnation of the band when it was revived in Paris. It was at this time that all of the quintet's best recordings were made. Those recordings frequently featured the highly melodic contrapuntal solos of Reinhardt and Grappelli, which still sound archetypical in their perfection many years later. In fact, the first time I ever heard "Nuages" and "Honeysuckle Rose," I knew I had found the magic elixirs needed to woo sophisticated women. Reinhardt hasn't let me down yet, and he won't let you down, either, as you'll find out when you turn on to his music.
Sadly, Reinhardt died of a brain hemorrhage in 1953. You can't see Reinhardt and his band play live anymore, but with the help of Le Chat Lunatique's virtuoso violinist Muni Kulasinghe, some low set lights and a high enough level of alcohol in your blood, you can swear that you are seeing Quintette du Hot Club de France live and in person right here in 'Burque. The feeling is surreal, and it's worth the hangover.
