DJANGO LIVES . . . !

I first tuned in to the playing of Django Reinhardt, the legendary manouche (French Gypsy) jazz guitarist, in the mid-1970s via an LP that I borrowed from my local public library. As I recall, that particular recording did not include Django’s equally legendary stable-mate, violinist Stéphane Grappelli: the other solo voice on the album was a clarinetist. I would not encounter Grappelli until, a couple of years later, I bought a cassette tape of the Quintette du Hot Club de France, a combo that confirms unequivocally that sometimes the whole is indeed greater than the sum even of its awesomely estimable parts. (Thirty-some years later, I still have that cassette, though by now I have all of the tunes on CD and on iPod as well.) Django died young, in 1953; but one of my abiding regrets is that I took a pass on two opportunities I had to see Grappelli perform: the first time in Dublin in 1978 (backed, I think, by Canadian-born British guitarist Diz Disley), the second time in Boston (backed, I suspect, by brilliant Scottish-based guitarist Martin Taylor), shortly before his death in 1997.

Maybe those missed opportunities were somewhere in the back of my mind when I decided, almost literally at the last minute, to head out to Scullers Jazz Club last night to hear John Jorgenson perform with his quintet. I arrived late, just as the show was about to start, and the room was filled almost to capacity—I was lucky to get a ticket. Really lucky. I wonder how many conversion experiences one is allowed to have in one’s lifetime. My most profound Saul-of-Tarsus-on-the-road-to-Damascus moment occurred back on July 8th, 2001 when I saw a performance by the New Guitar Summit—Duke Robillard, Jay Geils, and Gerry Beaudoin, six-string swingers in the tradition of the iconoclastic-become-iconic Charlie Christian—at a dive called The Rendezvous in Waltham, Mass. On our way home from that show I said to my wife: “That’s what I want to do with my life . . .” I suppose I should be grateful that I was converted to playing in a tradition and style that afforded me a chance at reasonable competence; what John Jorgenson does is at least as exhilarating . . . but considerably more daunting!

What Jorgenson does is bring to life the music of Django and Grappelli and the Quintette du Hot Club de France—who flourished in Paris between 1934 and 1939—with a flair and a finish in person that exceeds even what he has laid down in the recording studio on highly acclaimed CDs like Franco-American Swing and Ultraspontane. Playing tunes associated directly with Django as well as originals composed and arranged in the manouche style, Jorgenson is yet no mere imitator: he has fully mastered the style and the technique—the attack and the inflections—to the point that he has made Django’s music utterly his own. (As a gauge of just how “utterly,” check out Jorgenson’s fascinating and entertaining account of how he came to play the role on-screen of Django in Head in the Clouds, a 2004 feature film starring Charlize Theron, Penélope Cruz, and Stuart Townsend.)

I have to apologize—to myself!—for not having paid attention to John Jorgenson long before now. He has many claims to guitaristic fame—not the least of them a long-term hitch as a member of Elton John's backing band. He was also a member of the highly successful country music group The Desert Rose Band during the 1980s as well as co-leader of a group of Telecaster-slinging guitar heroes called The Hellecasters. As he displayed on the Scullers bandstand last night, he also plays clarinet and sings—he has multiple musical personalities!

But back to Scullers . . . As jaw-droppingly amazing as Jorgenson himself was on guitar—his fingers just flying up and down the fretboard in breathtakingly Django-esque arpeggios—the rest of his quintet confirmed further that indeed the whole is sometimes greater than the sum of its parts. In fact, one of the sweetest moments of the night came just before the combo’s final tune when Jorgenson took a few minutes to introduce his backing musicians at length, giving each of them his well-deserved due: Dutch-born Simon Planting on bass, British-born Kevin Nolan on rhythm guitar (the absolutely crucial role filled by Django’s brother Joseph Reinhardt in the Quintette du Hot Club de France), Alabama native Rick Reed on snare drum, and—last and by no means least—twenty-something Jason Anick, of Marlborough, Mass., on violin . . . a remarkable stand-in for Stéphane Grappelli!

But the ultra-sweet moment of the evening was the encore, when the quintet returned to the bandstand to perform—unplugged, just as Django Reinhardt and company would have—Django’s literally anthemic “Nuages.” This capped one of the best concerts I’ve ever attended in my life: I’ll be watching for John Jorgenson to come to town again.