M1 Oh, Lady Be Good (George and Ira Gershwin, 1924), Django, CBS Realm Jazz Series 1969/1934 (2:50)...
M2 Dinah, (Akst, Lewis, Young, 1925) Django, CBS Realm Jazz Series 1969/1934 (2:30)...
M3 I Saw Stars (Sigler, Goodhart, Hoffman, 1934), Django, CBS Realm Jazz Series 1969/1934 (2:20).......
M4 Confessin’, (Daugherty, Reynolds, 1929), Django, CBS Realm Jazz Series 1969/1935 (2:40)....
M5 The Sunshine of Your Smile, (Ray, Cooke, 1913) Django, CBS Realm Jazz Series, 1969/1935 (2:50).....
M6 Swannee River (Old Folks at Home), (Foster, 1851), Django, CBS Realm Jazz Series, 1969/1935 (2:50)...
M7 Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?)(Davis, Ramirez, Sherman, 1941) Best of Django Reinhardt, EMI / Columbia, 1970/1947 (3:10)
M8 Golden Green (Ponty, 1972), Ponty/Grappelli, Inner City Records, 1976/1973 (4:42)
Today’s Vinyl Vibrations podcast features the artistry of French Violinist Stephane Grappelli.
Stephane Grappelli is best known as the founder of the Quintette du Hot Club de France along with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. This was a GYPSY jazz band. Grappelli is considered the grandfather of jazz violinists. He lived 90 years, from 1908 until 1997.
He began playing violin at the age of 12, early on, preferring to learn in the streets by watching how other violinists played, such as at the Barbes (pron BAR-bez) metro station in Paris. Then he was enrolled by his father at the Conservatory of Paris to learn music theory, sight reading, and ear training. He graduated three years later.
Starting at age 15, he worked in the pit orchestra at the Theatre Gaumont, accompanying silent films, then at the Ambassador Hotel orchestra, where jazz violinist Joe Venuti was playing. For a while, Grappelli abandoned violin --- in favor of playing piano in a big band, it was easier to get paid for big band work. Jazz violinists were a relatively unknown and rare breed. In this big band, Grappelli met gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. It was 1931 and Grappelli was just 23, Django was 21. Three years later, Django and Grappelli formed the Quintette du Hot Club de France . This was an all-string jazz band, and they performed regularly at the Montmartre district, an artistic village on the hill in the northside of Paris. This continued until 1939 when the Quintette disbanded due to the outbreak of World War II. ‘’
When the war was over, the original Quintette never did reform. Django and Grappelli did continue to perform together in Paris. In 1949, they briefly toured in Italy, where some 50 tunes were recorded. That would turn out to be the last time the two would record together, 1949, due to Django’s untimely death at the age of 43. Many of those recorded songs were released as an album titled Djangology in 2005 on Bluebird Records.
Most of the recordings featured in today’s podcast were recorded between 1934 and 1947 and were recorded in Paris, as performed by the Quintette du Hot Club de France.
Stephane Grappelli is a master of improvisation. He had said that he was not a fan of BEBOP jazz, which was then very fashionable in the jazz world. Instead, he was a strong proponent of SWING music, another popular jazz style. Swing developed in the US in 1935-1945 ….. This was the SWING ERA in America.