Oncle Archibald gypsy jazz

The Castro brothers had a considerable influence on the young Django Reinhardt, playing folk music and waltzes at parties and meetings. It was one of them, Poulette Castro – whose waltz “Valse a Poulette” si still played nowadays – who taught Django the proper wrist position of the right hand, that allows to obtain a more incisive plectrum attack. That ‘s a technique which has become typical of the manouche guitar style.

So Django, who was just twelve years old, began to perform in taverns playing the banjo-guitar along with his brother Joseph.

It was during one of these gigs that the famous accordionist Guerino listened to Django, and got so impressed that hired him. Django worked with Guerino in several bal musettes, improvising variations on increasingly difficult music, including the dreaded polka “Perle de cristal”. His specialty were also the fox-trot and the american one-step, including “The Sheik of Araby” and “Dinah.”

It was during this period, while accompanying the accordionist Guerino and, later, Jean Vaissade, that he wrote the waltzes “Chez Jacquet” and “Montagne Sainte Genevieve”.

Oncle Archibald

Django Reinhardt – Jean-Baptiste Reinhardt, a.k.a. Django – was born in Liverchies, Belgium, on January 23, 1910, from a family of Manouche origin, a branch of european gypsies from Eastern Europe that had spread to Germany, eastern France, Holland and Belgium, at the beginning of the past century.

He belonged to a family of itinerant musicians. His father was a pianist and violinist, and was director of dance orchestra with which he toured in France, Italy, Corsica and Algeria, to finally settle with his trailer on the outskirts of Paris.

His repertoire consisted of folk songs and successful arias, including the waltz, very fashionable in the salons and casinos of the time.

The young Django was consequently raised in the environment of the dance floor and the bal musette, and began playing the banjo-guitar by ear at the age of 12 years. He never went to any school and could neither read nor write (years after, the violinist Stéphane Grappelli taught him to do his signature, at least for contracts and autographs), but nevertheless soon became an early virtuoso of the instrument.

In the dance halls, Django, who worked for many famous musette accordionists, loved to play the highly technical Gusti Malha’s waltzes, a widely known banjoist of the ’20s who accompanied the king of the dance halls and who composed the famous “La valse des Niglos”

Oncle Archibald