Quintets du Hot Club de France
The Quintette du Hot Club de France was the first jazz ensemble exclusively made up of string instrumentalists . This form of instrumentation, which is still important today in gypsy jazz , is named after this group.
history
The guitarist Django Reinhardt and the violinist Stéphane Grappelli founded the quintet in Paris in 1934 at the suggestion of Pierre Nourry and Charles Delaunay from the Hot Club de France . In addition to Django Reinhardt and Grappelli, Django's brother Joseph Reinhardt as well as Roger Chaput and Pierre "Baro" Ferret as other guitarists and Louis Vola as double bass player. For the first time in jazz there was a division of labor between solo and rhythm guitar . The two rhythm guitarists (J. Reinhardt / Chaput and Ferret) also had a percussive function and replaced the drums by playing la pompe .
The group got its name because its first appearances took place under the organizational umbrella of the Hot Club de France . In 1934 the first record was released by Ultraphone (after it had previously been rejected by Odeon as "far too modern"); Reinhardt and his musicians recorded the Dinah , Tiger Rag , I Saw Stars and Lady, Be Good standards at this first session in the Ultraphone studio in the Montparnasse district of Paris on Avenue du Maine ; there one produced "with skepticism and hoping to be able to recoup the expenses by selling 500 records."
This quintet with its unusual timbres was successful and toured through large parts of Europe. In March 1937, his version of " After You've Gone " came 20th on the US charts. Apart from minor changes in the line-up, it remained in existence until the outbreak of World War II in 1939, which the group experienced in Great Britain. Since Grappelli stayed in London until the end of the war, the quintet (with the same name) was reshaped by Reinhardt: Hubert Rostaing took the place of the violin with his clarinet . Around 100 recordings, recorded between December 1934 and August 1939, keep the memory of this distinctive band alive.
With the change to clarinetist Rostaing, the rhythm section became comparatively conventional in 1940 with a different line-up of rhythm guitar (usually Joseph Reinhardt), bass and drums . The original line-up of violin, three guitars and double bass was initially taken over by Sarane Ferret , is still considered the typical hot club line- up today and has found successors in many countries.
Other musicians involved
Musicians who took part in the recording sessions of the Quintette du Hot Club de France were Pierre Allier (trumpet), Marcel Bianchi (guitar), Jos Breyre (trombone), Arthur Briggs (trumpet), Philippe Brun (trumpet), Maurice Cizeron (flute) ), Alix Combelle (clarinet, tenor saxophone), André Cornille (trumpet), Alphonse Cox (trumpet), Beryl Davis (vocals), Josette Daydé (vocals), Gus Deloof (trumpet), Eugène d'Hellemmes (trombone), Roger Grasset (Double bass), André Jourdan (drums), Pierre Fouad (drums), Gérard Lévêque (clarinet), André Lluis (clarinet), Francis Lucas (double bass), Guy Paquinet (trombone), Tony Rovira (double bass), Lucien Simoëns (double bass ), Emmanuel Soudieux (double bass), Freddy Taylor (vocals), Eugène Vées (guitar), Michel Warlop (violin).
literature
- Michael Dregni, Alain Antonietto, Anne Legrand: Django Reinhardt and the Illustrated History of Gypsy Jazz. Speck Press, Denver CO 2006, ISBN 1-933108-10-X , Chapter 3: Quintets .
- Dr. Dietrich Schulz-Köhn: Django Reinhardt, Pegasus Verlag Wetzlach, 1960