Django!

DIE BALLADE VON SCHNUCKENACK REINHARDT-1997-If you like jazz guitar music and you don’t know who Django Reinhardt is you owe it to yourself to find out. Dubbed “the Gypsy Guitar player” he made some fantastic recordings (many with jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli) in his short life but had his greatest success playing during the Nazi occupation of his native France (while Hitler incarcerated half a million Gypsies in concentration camps). Reinhardt had an unusual technique having lost two fingers in a fire when he was young. This documentary is more about devotees to the art and Django and Gypsy music than the man himself but it still has some good points. He has a dedicated following in Japan but is most used commercially in France where Gypsies aren’t exactly welcomed. The funniest part is an old French man who claims to have Reinhardt’s birth certificate locked in a chest he can’t open!

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