When Django Reinhardt turned electric

When Django Reinhardt turned electric in 1947, a new era had begun. The war was over, be bop had taken over from swing and Django had just returned from the USA having played with Duke Ellington and other jazz greats.

After the break-up of the famous "Quintet of the Hot Club of France" with its time of dazzling glory of 1935-39, Django found the time to explore this new electric evolution in the playing of the guitar.

He certainly took a certain risk laying aside his treasured acoustic guitar for the heavier cabled one. But his greatness as an artist can be witnessed in the fact that he did not just play electric as he would acoustic but adapted his playing style to electric amplification. Streched notes and lightning swifts in tempo and volume as well as an exploration of the pause and the contrasts of soft and low on the one hand and the growl and harshness of the loud electric sound on the other. 

But by the time of the 1953 electric sessions, Django was largely forgotten or more or less ignored as a musician. When he had a booking or two, three weeks at the Ringside, the future Blue note, he didn’t draw much of a crowd. Some fellow musicians had even the audacity to say that Django was past it, if not finished. It was Eddie Barclay who convinced him to return to Paris to record. In a bust of pride, Django accepted and plugged in the electric guitar with some top notch friend musicians accompanying him. He turned into an unparalleled soloist playing definitive versions of “Nuages”, “Manoir de mes rêves” and “Brazil” among many others.

Nevertheless, from the sleeve notes of the “Peche à la Mouche” album, Pierre Michelot writes of the reception of this album: “Django intended to give his own answer to everyone who thought he was over the hill. He was bringing everyone up to date, but nobody could be bothered to look at the calender.”

When Django turned electric and was ignored by the audience, somebody should have had the guts to say one word to the music loving crowds and fans: Judas! 

Listen to:

"Brazil" by Django Reinhardt

All my time is lying on the factory floor…

Bill Fay was an English singer, pianist and song writer who made a single "Some Good Advice"/"Screams in the Ears" and two albums “Bill Fay” and “Time of the Last Persecution” for the Deram label between 1967 and 1971. Unfortunately these albums were never properly promoted and distributed and they didn’t sell. He was consequently dropped by the label. Following the likes of Nick Drake and so many artists who for some strange reason never make it in the music industry, Bill Fay faded out of sight. But the music on these two records is well worth seeking out.

On the first album “Bill Fay”, the songs have been embellished with orchestral arrangements giving them a rather lush and haunted feel. The lyrics are quite unusual and poetic and are not conceived with the intention of producing a commercial hit. As for Bill Fay’s voice, it is beautiful throughout the record sometimes sounding like a strange crooner of the common people.

On the second album, “Time of the Last Persecution”, Bill Fay opted for a more stripped down, organic but, at the same time, experimental approach recruiting guitarist Ray Russell. Russell went on to be a major session player, but at the time of this album he was better known as a noted musician on the jazz improvisation scene. His playing on Bill Fay’s album covers almost all the palette of guitar techniques and phrases ranging from 70’s traditional scale licks to complete atonal interventions or even noise. The contrast of having this avant-garde element opposed to the affirmative singing of Bill Fay makes this record very special indeed.

According to Julian Cope’s Headheritage site, Bill Fay eventually relinquished his career in music for a normal 9 to 5 job. From then on, it seems “all his time was lying on the factory floor…”

Record companies should be prosecuted for musical crimes against humanity.

Λίγο πριν φτάσει ο Καρυωτάκης στην Πρέβεζα

από το αρχείο Γ. Θ. Καρυωτάκη, στο βιβλίο Χρονογραφία Καρυωτάκη

Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd

From the film" Brazil" by Terry Gilliam, 1985

The Unknown Citizen
(To JS/07/M/378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State)

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for he time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

W. H. Auden

Fortune-telling by Zbigniew Herbert

All the lines descend into the valley of the palm
into a hollow where bubbles a small spring of fate
Here is the life line Look it races like an arrow
the horizon of five fingers brightened by its stream
which surges forth overthrowing obstacles
and nothing is more beautiful more powerful
than this striving forward

How helpless compared to it is the line of fidelity
Like a cry in the night a river in the desert
Conceived in the sand and perishing in the sand
Maybe deeper under the skin it continues further
parts the tissue of muscles and enters the arteries
so that we might meet at night our dead
down inside where memory and blood
flow in mineshafts wells chambers
full of dark names

This hill was not here--after all I remember
there was a nest of tenderness as round as if
a hot tear of lead had fallen on my hand
After all I remember hair the shadow of a cheek
frail fingers and the weight of a sleeping head

Who destroyed the nest who heaped up
the mound of indifference which was not here
Why do you press your palm to your eyes
We tell fortunes Who are we to know

Taken from the book "Zbigniew Herbert - The collected poems 1956-1998", Harper Collins. Translated by Alissa Valles