Although I was already very familiar with jazz, I wasn't aware of Django and the Gypsy Swing / Swing Manouche.
One day, probably being 16, I discovered it and it changed my experience with music forever.
While my friends fantasized with motorcycles, I was dreaming to attend the Samois Sur Senne festival. This passion drove me to fly to Rome, Paris, Berlin, etc just to see Angelo Debarre or Rosenberg, to fanatically collect records that never made it to the digital era like Waso's, and what not.
For those that weren't exposed yet to it, please, let yourself be tempted. Allow Django's music touch you with its brutal delicacy and self-mocking irony.
Something similar happened to me. An artist I liked effusively praised Django Reinhardt in their CD liner notes. For a sheltered suburbanite, the words "Django Reinhardt" were more or less gobbledygook, so I had to figure out exactly who or what it meant and why it prompted one of my favorite guitarists to pen an ode of praise. All this sent me on a months-long quest to track down albums and information in a pre-search-engine flyover state about an obscure gypsy guitarist.
It wasn't till I was a year or so into knowing about Django Reinhardt that I learned he did it all with just two fingers on his left hand. It blew my mind.
I wonder if we've gained or lost something culturally by having the detailed discography and life story of every artist in our pockets.
We gained a lot! In fact, I think we are approaching the possible maximum (that maximum obviously being the nineties/early 2000 days of audiogalaxy, napster etc... when people shared pretty much any kind of music).
The Joe Pass tribute is amazing. It is an ode by someone that is at a similar level of technical virtuosity, but with his own extremely distinct voice. It is a nod, not attempt to copy. Very unique.
If you are ever in NYC, the present-day patron saint of gypsy jazz (Stephane Wrembel) has a residency at Barbes in Park Slope. He plays every Sunday at 8, and hosts an annual festival "Django a Gogo" coming up on the first weekend in May.
In college, in a music class (History of Jazz maybe?), I had to miss an exam, and the professor assigned me an essay to make up for it: Life and impact of Django Reinhardt, minimum of 10 pages (back in the "12 point font, Times New Roman" days).
This was in the early '00s, and hand-over-heart, there was less than 10 pages _on the internet_ about Reinhardt. The collegiate library was not much more help.
It's not particularly important, but perhaps worth noting, that the disablement of the 2 burned fingers was not complete. Their motion and utility was severely curtailed due to the burn damage, but he still utilised them where he could. One of the final pictures in the linked article shows an example of how he could fret certain shapes with all 4 fingers if necessary, though this was certainly a minor part of his technique given the limitations.
It's strange seeing valuable articles being flagged as dead in the new section but somehow this gets promoted to the front page because of the Django framework shares the same first name as this Jazz musician.
Or maybe because this is actually the fascinating story about someone who -- in true hacker spirit -- creates a completely new genre despite having only two fingers available for fretwork after he got burned badly.
Which was all news to me. So now I am going to spend the rest of the day finding some of Django Reinhardt's music.
As as ipaddr points out it seems this got promoted by an algorithm.
But that aside I always felt like Django's music aged quiet poorly. A few country/blues/jazz and related styles from the first half of 20th century have. Big band - did not age well and effectively vanished as far I can see. Rag time, a very popular style for a couple of decades, gives me some enjoyment but mostly as a curiosity.
That is all in contrast to a massive body of jazz and blues music from the era that has not aged a tiny bit, like pretty much anything on Harry Smith’s "Anthology of American Folk Music". Say, for being zany and of the times "King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O" feels as real and pleasurable as anything and keeps finding its way into pop culture.
Messy Nessy is a popular blog and Django Reinhardt is "considered by some the greatest guitarist who ever lived," so I find it odd that you'd declare that his music hasn't aged well. Adrian, Simon, Jacob, and the folks at LJW appreciated it enough to name their Python Web framework after him and we're still talking about it 18+ years later.
There are entire festivals that happen around the world dedicated to his music!
It's interesting that you mentioned big band with Django, as I have both lumped together in my head as well; things that are much more impressive live than on a recording. Stepping into a venue where people are actually dancing to live to a jazz or swing band, and to not just hear but feel the deafening blast of horns are things you just can't get from a recording. I get a weird nostalgia for those live moments when I hear recordings.
Also FWIW I like Django, but I don't know if that it's aged poorly or if it's just mostly the same across a lot of his material and that the genre itself was played out over time. It's become "hokey" as some would call it and, perhaps, since we were never there we apply our modern perceptions to it.
That said, a few bangers still stand out on the recordings and some of the solos and tempo changes are cool, even by today's standards.
>Stepping into a venue where people are actually dancing to live to a jazz or swing band, and to not just hear but feel the deafening blast of horns are things you just can't get from a recording.
Dancing bal to a gypsy jazz group at Le Colonial in SF years ago, the space cramped, the tables pushed back a few feet around, the crowd dancing and mingling amongst the tables, half knowing each other, at the twilight of a dying facet of the city... I don't remember if the musicians were very good, or even whether it was just a solo guitarist---I recall he'd played at a party a day or two before---but in that moment the music was more enchanting than any grand concert I had been to.
Even live, but in a concert hall, I expect it would have been unsatisfying. By itself, except for particular technical appreciation when at Django's level, gypsy jazz is rather monotonous. I've heard styles that need similar contexts, played out of place in concert halls, like Max Raabe, and while the musicians are excellent, it feels lacking.
But in the right context, the context it was born in, it is amazing.
So far as I understand workings, that may be true in a strict sense, but algorithms and various site affordances can be at play. HN specifically penalises certain sites, and possibly keywords or themes.[1] And there are algorithms such as the flamewar detector which can kick in for specific threads.[2]
Much as a subsidy may be seen as an inverted penalty, an inverted penalty is a promotion.
That's a niggling argument, but in the interests of fairness and transparency, possibly worth noting.
There's also the 2nd chance queue, as noted in this thread here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40069963>. Though that's a manual, and not automated or algorithmic, adjustment.
I'll also note that this Mostly Seems to Improve Overall Site Quality, and I'm not criticising the practice, but clarifying it.
I mean, he is often cited as one of the best guitarrists and jazz players in history, as well as one of the most influential.
There is an entire style of music which basically can be described as attempting to sound like him, with an active community of people playing circuits, festivals, and regularly gigging musicians exclusively building entire careers on playing Jazz Manouche.
I disagree with your take, and have trouble understanding what you mean.
This is meta-commentary about HackerNews in general.
Your statement about this post was addressed by dang directly, and maybe that's why your comment is being downvoted into oblivion. This feels to me like throwing the baby out with the bath water.
That is sad, given the "meat" of your comment is inquisitive, thought-provoking, and politely delivered.
Has anyone else felt frustrated by the voting patterns of the HN community lately?
I wouldn't characterize it as thought-provoking or inquisitive. They criticize the music as if they are an royally appointed arbiter of good music, but never get to the heart of what they are actually criticizing, only remarking that the music is no longer popular and that it is not to their taste. They leverage this criticism of it not being to their taste to make the judgement that it not age well, as if they are making some universal self-evident observation, which I found absolutely tasteless and unconstructive. Given the down votes others may have felt the same way.
Thanks for the response. What I appreciated about their comment was that they framed the opinion as such, e.g "I always felt like Django's music aged quiet poorly" or "Rag time, a very popular style for a couple of decades, gives me some enjoyment but mostly as a curiosity."
But then OP gave an example of another artist where they felt like there was a stark contrast. That's interesting to me, because I don't know who Harry Smith is.
One day, probably being 16, I discovered it and it changed my experience with music forever.
While my friends fantasized with motorcycles, I was dreaming to attend the Samois Sur Senne festival. This passion drove me to fly to Rome, Paris, Berlin, etc just to see Angelo Debarre or Rosenberg, to fanatically collect records that never made it to the digital era like Waso's, and what not.
For those that weren't exposed yet to it, please, let yourself be tempted. Allow Django's music touch you with its brutal delicacy and self-mocking irony.
Now, after 30 years, I still love it.