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Django Reinhardt - Django in Rome 1949-1950 Audio CD

A fair review of the Django Reinhardt "Django in Rome 1949-1950" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Django Reinhardt reviews here, or go back to the Django Reinhardt tabs.

Django Reinhardt Band: Django Reinhardt
Title: Django in Rome 1949-1950
Rating:
Release Date: 2004-04-20
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Over the Rainbow 2: Night and Day 3: Minor Blues 4: Nature Boy 5: World Is Waiting for the Sunrise 6: Vous Qui Passez Sans Me Voir 7: Hallelujah 8: Nagasaki 9: I'll Never Be the Same 10: Swing '39 11: Clopin Clopant 12: Honeysuckle Rose 13: All the Things You Are 14: Djangology 15: Liza (All the Clouds'll Roll Away) 16: For Sentimental Reasons 17: Daphné 18: Mer 19: Sweet Georgia Brown 20: Lover Man 21: Marie 22: Stormy Weather 23: Minor Swing 24: To Each His Own 25: What Is This Thing Called Love? 26: Ou Es-Tu Mon Amour 27: Undecided 28: Swing '42 29: I Surrender Dear 30: After You've Gone 31: I Got Rhythm 32: I Saw Stars 33: Artillerie Lourde 34: It's Only a Paper Moon 35: Time on My Hands 36: Brick Top 37: Tchaikovsky's Starry Night 38: My Blue Heaven 39: Menilmontant 40: Swing Guitars 41: My Melancholy Baby 42: Webster 43: Micro 44: Micro 45: Dream of You 46: Begin the Beguine 47: How High the Moon 48: Nuages 49: I Can't Get Started 50: I Can't Give You Anything But Love 51: Man I Love 52: Peanut Vendor 53: Just a Gigolo 54: Troublant Bolero 55: Rosetta 56: Blue Skies 57: It Might as Well Be Spring 58: Blue Lou 59: Brazil 60: What a Diff'rence a Day Made 61: Pigalle 62: Manoir de Mes Reves 63: Improvisation No.4 64: Anniversary Song 65: Stormy Weather 66: Russian Songs Melody 67: Jersey Bounce 68: Dinette 69: Sophisticated Lady 70: Micro 71: Dream of You 72: Nuages 73: Darktown Strutters' Ball 74: Greig's Norwegian Dance 75: A-Tisket, A-Tasket 76: Manoir de Mes Reves 77: Place de Brouckere 78: September Song 79: Royal Garden Blues 80: St. Louis Blues 81: Sweet Georgia Brown 82: Minor Swing 83: Double Whisky 84: Artillerie Lourde 85: St. James Infirmary 86: C Jam Blues 87: Honeysuckle Rose 88: Debussy's Reverie 89: Black Night 90: Boogie Woogie

Five Stars
And it's not yet the bebop Django of a year or two later. Don't expect the perfectly executed Django solos of the War Years or the Hot Club here. The Rome set features a Django that sometimes bordered on sloppy, was showing some bebop influence, and had left far behind the "pompe" rhythms of the Quintette. The best I can come up with for his playing on this set is "relaxed brilliance. " He's much closer mic'ed than earlier recordings, and the Selmer guitar sparkles throughout the acoustic recordings with Grappelli. He casually takes us along on his unending exploration for the coolest intervals and hottest runs. Occasionally he drops a note, but the ones he hits are amazing.

By now, Grappelli was a recognized virtuoso, and demonstrates it well throughout. What surprised me was the nicely done stride piano by one Gianni Safred -- no Art Tatum, but jumps pretty well. One critique I'd have would be that the band seemed to use pretty much the same four bar piano intro (1/3, 2#dim, 2m, 5) on a bunch of these songs. The feel is much more modern than the Quintette sets, but still swings.

The 1950 Ekyan recordings are even more modern, featuring Django on electric -- I assume it's the Selmer with a pickup? -- if it's not a completely different guitar, it sounds like one. But Django tears it up, playing some dazzling solos. Ekyan I can pretty much do without.

Overall, a very listenable set. No scratchy archival recordings -- most of it is very clear and well-recorded. I think it might appeal to the jazz fan, because it fits more in the mold of "early jazz" than the Hot Club stuff, much of which was more ragtime than jazz. I prefer the sets with Grappelli, mostly because I'd rather listen to his fiddle than Ekyan's sax.

Strong buy.


A worthy addition to JSP's first two Django box sets
Taken together, these three sets provide a fairly complete (and very skillfully remastered) compilation of most of Django's known recordings. This is JSP's third great box set of Django Reinhardt recordings, and anyone who likes jazz guitar or just great music in general has to really appreciate their contribution.

I first hesitated to get this third set (Django in Rome 1949-1950) because many of the songs were included in "The Indispensable Django Reinhardt" which I already owned. Having listened to it now, though, I have no regrets about the purchase. Not only is the sound quality much better than "The Indispensible Django Reinhardt," but the additional songs included turn out to be many of Django's best recordings.

Of the four disks, the first three consist mainly of Django playing in 1949 in Rome with his old partner on violin, Stephane Grappelli, and the last disk contains recordings in 1950 with another old friend, Andre Ekyan, on alto sax and clarinet. In both cases the soloists are backed by competent Italian backup bands consisting of piano, bass and drums. Many of the recordings with Grappelli, in particular, rank with the very best of the original Quintet of the Hot Club of France, and it's quite interesting to see how they rework some of the same songs that they'd first recorded together a decade earlier.

One thing that should be mentioned is that, contrary to the title shown on the Amazon page, these are not live recordings and the name on the box set itself doesn't say "live. " It would be great to have a box set like this of live recordings of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli, but as far as I know nothing like that exists. In any case, it's at least fortunate that so many remarkable studio recordings have been preserved and now remastered.


You can see a complete list of all Django Reinhardt discography, or go back to the Django Reinhardt tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.

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