DJANGO REINHARDT

EARLY LIFE

• He was born on January 10th in Liberchies, Belgium
• Born into a French family of Manouche Romani descent.
• Reinhardt spent most of his youth in Romani encampments close to Paris, where he started playing violin, banjo, and guitar.
• By age 13, Reinhardt was able to make a living playing music

WHAT HE DID

• He was a guitarist and composer.
• He created an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique (sometimes called 'hot' jazz guitar), which has since become a living musical tradition within French Gypsy culture.
• Reinhardt's most popular compositions have become jazz standards.

WHY HE'S SIGNIFICANT

• Reinhardt is regarded as one of the greatest guitar players of all time.
• He was the first important European jazz musician who made major contributions to the development of the guitar genre

WHY HE'S SIGNIFICANT CONT.

• Reinhardt was a Roma jazz musician. During World War II both Roma and jazz musicians were targeted by the Nazi regime. Over a million Roma were exterminated for presumed racial inferiority and jazz was believed to combine the worst of Blacks and Jews. Just listening to a jazz record could get you sent to a concentration camp.
• Reinhardt, however, enjoyed the most lucrative period of his career during the war, while living and playing openly among Nazi soldiers.

CONTINUED

• Reinhardt survived because the Nazis loved jazz music, even as Hitler censored the music and, on his orders, people who dared to listen to, dance to, or play it were encamped and members of the groups who invented it were murdered.