1951-1953

The 17th and final installment in the Classics Django Reinhardt chronology contains the Gypsy guitarist's very last recordings. Its 22 tracks consist of Decca and Blue Star records cut in Paris between May 11, 1951, and April 8, 1953. By this time, Reinhardt had switched entirely to the electrically amplified guitar and was actively collaborating with progressive young players like alto saxophonist Hubert Fol, bassist Pierre Michelot, and pianists Raymond Fol and Martial Solal. This beautifully cool and bop-inspired music differs markedly from the Gypsy swing formula established during the 1930s by Reinhardt, Stéphane Grappelli, and the Quintet of the Hot Club of France. During the last years of his life, Reinhardt was not merely adapting to modernity -- he was actively defining it. Nowhere is this more evident than on the eccentrically reconfigured 1928 pop hit "Crazy Rhythm" and its flip side, Reinhardt's lovely "Anouman," a wistful air that feels like a Charles Mingus romance or a candidate for an early Truffaut or Godard film soundtrack. (The piece's title closely resembles the name of the monkey-faced Hindu deity Hanuman; it very well may represent one of the many links between European Gypsy culture and its East Indian ancestry.) This excellent compilation works as a moving and thought-provoking conclusion to the complete recordings of Django Reinhardt as compiled and reissued by the Classics label. (The only material that didn't make it into the series was an apparently contested body of works recorded in Rome during 1949 and 1950.) A little more than one month after recording "Le Soir," "Chez Moi," "I Cover the Waterfront," and "Deccaphonie," Django Reinhardt was felled by a stroke while fishing, was subsequently hospitalized, and left his body behind on May 16, 1953. Musically speaking, this album is his last will and testament. ~ arwulf arwulf|