The Quintette du Hot Club de France ("The Quintet of the Hot Club of France"), often abbreviated "QdHCdF" or "QHCF", was a
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
group founded in France in 1934 by guitarist
Django Reinhardt
Jean Reinhardt (23 January 1910 – 16 May 1953), known by his Romani nickname Django ( or ), was a Romani-French jazz guitarist and composer. He was one of the first major jazz talents to emerge in Europe and has been hailed as one of its most ...
and violinist
Stéphane Grappelli
Stéphane Grappelli (; 26 January 1908 – 1 December 1997, born Stefano Grappelli) was a French jazz violinist. He is best known as a founder of the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. It was one of the firs ...
and active in one form or another until 1948.
One of the earliest and most significant
continental jazz
Continental jazz was a genre of music that included early jazz dance bands of Europe in the swing medium, to the exclusion of Great Britain. The genre was generally practiced until the conclusion of World War II. By the time bebop
Bebop or b ...
groups in Europe, the Quintette was described by critic Thom Jurek as "one of the most original bands in the history of recorded jazz." Their most famous lineup featured Reinhardt, Grappelli, bassist
Louis Vola
Louis Vola (La Seyne-sur-Mer, France, 6 July 1902 – 15 August 1990, Paris), was a French double-bassist known for his work with the Quintette du Hot Club de France. He is the godfather of guitarist Francois Vola.
As well as the Hot Club de ...
, and rhythm guitarists
Roger Chaput
Roger Chaput (May 19, 1909 – December 22, 1994) was a French jazz guitarist and visual artist known for his work with the Quintette du Hot Club de France.
Life
Chaput grew up in the Parisian suburb known as Ménilmontant, where he learned t ...
and
Joseph Reinhardt
Joseph "Nin-Nin" Reinhardt (1912-1982) was the younger brother of guitarist Django Reinhardt and played rhythm guitar on most of Django's pre-war recordings, especially those with the Quintette du Hot Club de France between 1934 and 1939. He was ...
(Django's brother) who filled out the ensemble's sound and added occasional percussion.
History
According to Grappelli, the group evolved from a series of backstage jams originated by Django Reinhardt, with Stephane Grappelli, at the Hotel Claridge in Paris, where the two were engaged as members of a band led by bassist
Louis Vola
Louis Vola (La Seyne-sur-Mer, France, 6 July 1902 – 15 August 1990, Paris), was a French double-bassist known for his work with the Quintette du Hot Club de France. He is the godfather of guitarist Francois Vola.
As well as the Hot Club de ...
. After a series of informal jam sessions at the Hotel Claridge, concert promoters Pierre Nourry and
Charles Delaunay
Charles Delaunay (18 January 1911 – 16 February 1988) was a French author, jazz expert, co-founder and long-term leader of the Hot Club de France.
Biography
Born in Vineuil-Saint-Firmin, Oise, the son of painters Robert Delaunay and Sonia Del ...
(leaders of the "
Hot Club de France
The Hot Club de France is a French organization of jazz fans dedicated to the promotion of "traditional" jazz, swing, and blues. It was founded in 1931 in Paris, France, by five students of the Lycée Carnot. In 1928, Jacques Bureaux, Hugues Pana ...
", a society chaired by
Hugues Panassié
Hugues Panassié (27 February 1912 in Paris – 8 December 1974 in Montauban) was a French Music criticism, critic, record producer, and impresario of traditional jazz.
Career
Panassié was born in Paris. When he was fourteen, he was stricke ...
devoted to the appreciation of jazz) urged the formation of a permanent group. With the addition of Reinhardt's brother Joseph on second rhythm guitar, the quintet popularized the
gypsy jazz
Gypsy jazz (also known as gypsy swing, jazz manouche or hot club-style jazz) is a style of small-group jazz originating from the Romani guitarist Jean "Django" Reinhardt (1910–53), in conjunction with the French swing violinist Stéphane Gr ...
style. The group began its recording career in September 1934, releasing two titles on the Odeon label under the name "Delaunay’s Jazz". A December 1934 session produced the first recordings released under the name "Django Reinhardt et le Quintette du Hot Club de France, avec Stéphane Grappelly" (with Django's name misspelled as "Djungo"). Throughout 1935, the group recorded both under this name and as "Stéphane Grappelly and His Hot Four featuring Django Rheinhardt". Grappelli and Reinhardt maintained active schedules as freelance musicians during the early years of the Quintette, recording and performing with French pop artists such as
Jean Sablon
Jean Sablon (Nogent-sur-Marne 25 March 1906 – Cannes 24 February 1994) was a French singer, songwriter, composer and actor. He was one of the first French singers to immerse himself in jazz. The man behind several songs by big French and Amer ...
, Le Petit Mirsha, and Nane Cholet, and with jazz artists such as
Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Randolph Hawkins (November 21, 1904 – May 19, 1969), nicknamed "Hawk" and sometimes "Bean", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.Yanow, Scot"Coleman Hawkins: Artist Biography" AllMusic. Retrieved December 27, 2013. One of the first p ...
,
Benny Carter
Bennett Lester Carter (August 8, 1907 – July 12, 2003) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader. With Johnny Hodges, he was a pioneer on the alto saxophone. From the beginning of his career ...
,
Rex Stewart
Rex William Stewart Jr. (February 22, 1907 – September 7, 1967) was an American jazz cornetist who was a member of the Duke Ellington orchestra.
Career
As a boy he studied piano and violin; most of his career was spent on cornet. Stewart drop ...
,
Larry Adler
Lawrence Cecil Adler (February 10, 1914 – August 6, 2001) was an American harmonica player. Known for playing major works, he played compositions by George Gershwin, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Malcolm Arnold, Darius Milhaud and Arthur Benjamin. ...
, Alix Combelle, and André Ekyan. Between 1934 and 1948, the Quintette du Hot Club de France recorded more than 130 titles in the studio for the Decca, Swing, HMV, Ultraphone, and Odeon labels.
A series of European tours were very successful, with the group enjoying particular popularity in the UK. Several bassists and rhythm guitarists rotated in and out of the group, with Django and Grappelli remaining the sole constants. In 1937, the American jazz singer
Adelaide Hall
Adelaide Louise Hall (20 October 1901 – 7 November 1993) was an American-born UK-based jazz singer and entertainer. Her long career spanned more than 70 years from 1921 until her death and she was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Hal ...
opened a nightclub in Montmartre along with her husband Bert Hicks and called it 'La Grosse Pomme'. She entertained there nightly and hired the Quintette du Hot Club de France as one of the house bands at the club.
As World War II broke out in September 1939, the Quintette was on a concert tour of England. Reinhardt, who spoke virtually no English, immediately returned to France, where he thought he would feel safer than in the UK. Grappelli, meanwhile, stayed in England.
Django continued using the Quintette name with a different group, featuring
Hubert Rostaing
Hubert Rostaing (17 September 1918 – 10 June 1990) was a jazz clarinetist and tenor saxophonist. He also did film composition and classical music.
He began his career in Algiers with the "Red Hotters" and later moved to Paris. He might be best ...
as the first of several clarinetists backed by a more conventional
rhythm section
A rhythm section is a group of musicians within a music ensemble or band that provides the underlying rhythm, harmony and pulse of the accompaniment, providing a rhythmic and harmonic reference and "beat" for the rest of the band.
The rhythm sec ...
with drums, bass and a rhythm guitar played by Django's son
Lousson Reinhardt
Henri Baumgartner (1929–1992), known professionally as Lousson Reinhardt, was a French gypsy jazz guitarist and the first son of Django Reinhardt by his first wife, Florine Mayer.
Biography
Django Reinhardt married Florine Mayer in 1927 accor ...
, or his brother Joseph. This version of the Quintette often featured six, not five, players, and was usually billed as "Django et le Quintette du Hot Club de France", or sometimes as Django's "Nouveau Quintette". Due to wartime shortages of material, this version of the Quintette did not issue many recordings (some 70 titles were recorded between 1940 and 1948), although they did issue the first recording of the Django Reinhardt composition ''
Nuages
"Nuages" () is one of the best-known compositions by Django Reinhardt. He recorded at least thirteen versions of the tune, which is a jazz standard and a mainstay of the gypsy swing repertoire. English and French lyrics have been added to the piec ...
'', later to become a jazz standard.
In 1946, after the war, Grappelli and Django re-teamed intermittently under the Quintette banner in an all-string format, while Django continued to record and perform with his "Nouveau Quintette" and as a freelance soloist. As before the war, the Quintette cycled through a number of rhythm guitarists and bassists. This last iteration of the Quintette performed and recorded until about 1948. In early 1949, Django and Grappelli traveled to Rome to play a live engagement. While in Rome, the two made their final recordings together, a total of 70 titles, with a piano trio composed of local musicians.
Legacy
By the late 1940s, Grappelli's style of violin swing was out of fashion, and Django, no longer performing regularly, had become interested in playing modern jazz inspired by American bebop musicians such as
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but addi ...
. Django pursued modern jazz until his death in 1953, while Grappelli played and recorded mainstream swing music throughout the 1950s and 1960s when he was active on the music scene.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, a handful of European guitarists continued to play acoustic jazz guitar in the style of Django Reinhardt, largely ignored by the jazz press and with few opportunities to record or tour. Musicians such as
Baro and
Matelo Ferret
Jean Pierre "Matelo" Ferret (1918 – 24 January 1989) (also spelled Matelot, Matlo and Matlow, surname also later spelled Ferré on occasion) was a French musette and gypsy jazz guitarist and composer. He was an associate of Django Reinhardt an ...
(both of whom were sometime-members of the Quintette du Hot Club de France), Etienne Patotte Bousquet, and Tchan Tchou Vidal kept the sound of the Quintette alive, often mixing
musette
Musette may refer to:
Music
* Musette de cour, or baroque musette, a musical instrument of the bagpipe family
* Musette bechonnet, a type of French bagpipe
* Musette bressane, a type of French bagpipe
* Oboe musette, or piccolo oboe, the small ...
waltzes and traditional tunes with the American popular songs and original compositions favored by Django and Grappelli.
In 1973, British guitarist
Diz Disley
William Charles "Diz" Disley (27 May 1931 – 22 March 2010) was an Anglo-Canadian jazz guitarist and banjoist. He is best known for his acoustic jazz guitar playing, strongly influenced by Django Reinhardt, for his contributions to the UK trad ...
helped persuade Grappelli to return to performing with an all-strings jazz group inspired by the Quintette du Hot Club de France, and Grappelli toured and recorded often using this format during the 1970s. Simultaneously, a revival of the Quintette's sound by a younger generation of artists was underway, with musicians like
Fapy Lafertin
Fapy Lafertin (born 20 November 1950) is a Belgian guitarist in the Belgian-Dutch gypsy jazz style.
Lafertin was born in Kortrijk, Belgium in the Manouche Romani community and took up guitar at the age of five. After performing in a family band ...
,
Raphaël Faÿs
Raphaël Faÿs is a French gypsy jazz and classical guitarist and composer born in Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated ...
, and
Biréli Lagrène
Biréli Lagrène (born 4 September 1966) is a French jazz guitarist who came to prominence in the 1980s for his Django Reinhardt–influenced style. He often performs in swing, jazz fusion, and post-bop styles.
Biography
Lagrène was born in So ...
helping to establish the
Gypsy jazz
Gypsy jazz (also known as gypsy swing, jazz manouche or hot club-style jazz) is a style of small-group jazz originating from the Romani guitarist Jean "Django" Reinhardt (1910–53), in conjunction with the French swing violinist Stéphane Gr ...
subgenre as a popular style worldwide.
Discography
References
External links
National Geographic's World Music site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Quintette du Hot Club de France
French jazz ensembles
Musical groups established in 1934
Swing ensembles
1934 establishments in France
Musical groups from Paris