STICKING TWO FINGERS UP AT DJANGO REINHARDT
So you are a young Romany lad, making your way in the world sitting round the campfires of France. Disaster strikes, and in a freak (some say pre-meditated by a tune hating god) accident you burn your hands so badly that you natural inclination it to use base six. Still, never fear there are plenty of decent jobs out there for a bloke with only partially damaged hands. Very few jobs require really dexterous hands after all. Oh – you want to be a musician? Well, this proves you are mentally disabled as well as physically, but there are plenty of instruments which don’t require dexterity. Drums. Xylophone. The Tuba only need three working fingers.
Oh. Guitar. Well you are Django Reinhardt then, and you are a tosser.
At least Django picked the right genre to play in. After all in Jazz no-one can hear you miss a note. In jazz giutar all you’re tryiong to do is play something that pisses off the cornet player. Django’s crab-like style has apparently set the bar on jazz guitar playing, which can thereore allow you to imagine how low said bar is when a man with less fingers than average is the best player they can muster. Now I am all for equal opportunities but lauding Django is a bit like hiring a deaf person to work for directory enquiries*. Djangology to me just sums up a litany of mauled classics as yet again Reinhardts phantom finger goes for the note. Why do you think Stephan Grappelli hung around with him for so long? It wan’t just because he could always beat him a Stone Paper Scissor, but also playing with a cripple made him look good. Which equally proved how lousy he was.
*As opposed to their usual job of A&R for Sony Records.