Django Reinhardt’s I’ll See You In My Dreams is the song that speaks to me the most, despite it having no lyrics.
In it I find joy, sadness, tragedy, forgiveness, everything.
See if it speaks to you too.
I’ve loved Django’s music ever since I discovered it about twenty years ago.
His story is incredible, which may explain his gift as a musician. A Romani gypsy living in France, he had a tragic accident in his early twenties (a fire in his caravan) which left him with severe injuries.
There’s a beautiful story of how he lay in his hospital bed in Paris, all but dead to the world. His brother lay the guitar next to him, and that saved his life.
At the time of the accident, he was already a working musician playing in the music halls of Paris. The accident disfigured him, leaving him with the use of only two fingers on his left hand, the hand he used to fret the chords.
Where most would have given up, he adapted his playing to overcome it and, in a lovely twist of fate, created a new genre of music.
To this day, when you play gypsy jazz (as I often attempt to), it always sounds better when you use two fingers.
He was most prolific in the 1930s and recording some amazing tracks with violin virtuoso Stefan Grappeli under the Hot Club De France moniker.
Every year, gypsy jazz fans descend on the village of his birth, Samois Sur Seine, just south of Paris to jam all through the night around campfires.
I did the pilgrimage in 2019 with my mate Ben in my campervan.
It was magical 🙂
