Play it again, Django

Vincent has a guitar in hand, as does Bayo, and as he starts strumming the chords to the jazz classic “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love”, he explains to reporter John Laurenson how everyone in the family plays the instrument. “They’re not necessarily good enough to play in bars, but they can all play at least a few chords”, he says.

But they’re not just any chords the family is strumming, but the unmistakable gypsy jazz sounds of Django Reinhardt, the legendary guitarist who was born 100 years ago this month. In France, the occasion is being marked with concerts, special edition CDs and TV programmes. In Paris, they’re even naming a town square after him.

Django's Legacy

Extraordinarily for music pioneered in the 1930s, Django’s distinctive guitar swing is still very popular in today’s France, with many non-gypsies embracing his style. But it is French gypsies, even very young ones, who are doing the most to keep the Django flame alive. Like Vincent.

“This music is who we are”, he says. “It’s like in America with rappers. This music is our trademark…. It’s the only thing we’ve got to be proud of, really… the only thing French gypsies, the Manouches invented is that… and it was Django who did it”.

The number of Manouche jazz venues in Paris is still growing – over 50 years after Django’s death. Twenty-eight year old Frangy Delporte is an up-and-coming Manouche Jazz star who plays Paris’s best-known jazz venue, the Duc des Lombards. He’s got slicked-back hair like Django and plenty of attitude in his patent leather shoes with no laces. “I’ve been listening to Django ever since I was little because of my uncle”, says Delporte. “I don’t know what it was I liked so much. His music touched me and made me want to play”.

Django died a long time before Frangy Delporte, Vincent Maillie and so many other Manouche guitarists were born. Yet his inspiration lives on, perhaps in the meaning of his name: “Django” is Romany for ‘I awake’.