Gypsy Jazz Guitar

From LoveToKnow Guitar

Gypsy jazz guitar is one of the most expressive styles of acoustic music ever created. Also known as Gypsy swing, this style was popularized in the 1930s and is often synonymous with guitarist Django Reinhardt. The unique, highly stylized sound of this music creates a powerful nostalgic mood, and therefore, it is often used in motion picture scores. Woody Allen almost obsessively includes Gypsy jazz music in his films, and his 1999 movie Sweet and Lowdown tells the fictional story of the swing guitarist Emmet Ray who is begrudgingly known as the second best Gypsy guitar player in the world behind Mr. Reinhardt. Learn more about Gypsy jazz and the amazing career of Django Reinhardt.

What Is Gypsy Jazz Guitar?

The Gypsy style originated in Paris and achieved its height of popularity between the 1930s and the 1950s. Gypsy bands typically consisted of one to three guitar players, a violin player and a bass player, although clarinets, accordions and drums accompanied some ensembles. The music is played very fast, and the driving force behind the tempo is a rhythm guitar technique called la pompe. This percussive technique is similar to what modern bluegrass mandolin players call the chop. Basically, a quick up-strum anticipates all the down beats the guitar plays, and this creates a feeling of propulsion that pushes the music along. The chords most often employed in this style are 6th and 9th chords.

The other notable technique associated with Gypsy jazz guitar is the lead playing. Reinhardt's playing was notable for the dark tones of his leads. This was achieved by using diminished chords and arpeggios and by playing a lot of chromatic runs in his solos. The combination of these techniques creates a moody sound that is rich in tension.

About Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt was a Belgian Gypsy who grew up in an encampment near Paris. He could neither read nor write music and was nearly illiterate. One of the most amazing things about the Gypsy jazz style is that it was greatly influenced by a personal tragedy. When Django was 18, a fire left him badly burned and partially paralyzed the third and forth fingers of his left hand. He had to relearn the guitar completely from the ground up, and because of his handicap, he had to create a new playing technique. Thus, all of Reinhardt's solos were only played with two fingers, and he only used his burned fingers for chord work. Some believe the chromatic lines of his solos were inspired by this technique that was produced out of necessity.

With his most notable accompanist, violinist Stéphane Grappelli, Django made the most famous music of his career, but he also traveled to America in the 1940s and recorded with American legends like Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong. Reinhardt's guitar, a Selmer Maccaferri, is almost as synonymous with Gypsy jazz as Reinhardt himself, and these beautiful, cutaway archtop guitars are often considered to be some of the best instruments ever made.

Reinhardt died of a brain hemorrhage in 1953 in France, and even though he was only 43 years old, his amazing body of work has caused him to be considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century.