From Django Reinhardt: 100 Years of Hot Jazz
LEAD
…with no formal training
the guitarist developed a new style of music in the 30s and 40s
which came to be dubbed ‘gypsy jazz’
he’s one of the very few european musicians to ever exert a serious influence on the American artform of jazz.
TOM COLE
People, even those who knew him, speak of Django Reinhardt with a kind of awe, as almost some superhuman being consumed with music.
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My roommate and I recently discovered that we were both without heroes growing up — that isn’t to say we lacked any role models — I’m still waiting for you, Spiderman! — but rather that we lacked Hero Worship. We lacked figures who embodied evvvverything we wanted to be. The conversation wound on to how instead we appreciated individual attributes, blah, blah, blah…But soon I found myself wondering about the people I did fetishize, people whom I didn’t want to necessarily be, but couldn’t help but adore.
David Bowie (as Ziggy Stardust) comes to mind a little too quickly, though not before my childhood favorites, Jane Goodall and Tolkein (coughGandolfcough). There have been other authors: I’ve flirted with Vonnegut, messed around with Nabokov. Surely Orson Wells and his ego got stuck in there somewhere. Lawrence Lessig’s been doing pretty well nowadays.
They’re not, really, my heroes, but they might as well be: they’re superhuman. Through their celebrity and their accomplishments and eccentricities, all these names and so many more are superhuman. Bigger than the rest of us.
And that’s what heroes are, I think: people who stand out. People whose achievements save us from ourselves, offering us escape or hope or innovation. By seemingly standing on their own shoulders, these fey folk have poked holes through the clouds to cast themselves in heavenly spotlights while we look up at them and stare.
The line between Hero-material and Celebrity has grown decidedly thin…Sure, there are “Everyday Heroes”, but we usually only whip out that label to add some pizazz to a lifestyle that can be easily grouped and taken for granted (firefighters, moms, local conservationists).
True Hero- or Celebrity-status obscures the fact that these superhumans are walking around eating and sleeping and sweating and panicking like the rest of us. If you could catch them at the deli counter away from their body guards, you could walk right up and poke them in the nose.
I guess you can practice true Hero Worship and forgive all the imperfections, but it’s hard for me to wrap my head around it. I can’t even worship a supposedly perfect being properly. I prefer to think that there are some people with extraordinary ability and that their power is just that — talent. There is something in their chromosomes — be there 46 of them or otherwise — that lets these people see, act, shape, make, dream, build, sing, etc., etc., etc. until they do the impossible: create matter. Whatever.
…Which somehow brings me back to Django Reinhardt. The world celebrated his 100th birthday for him a few days ago. Untrained in anything but being awesome, as a young man he picked up a guitar, made an incredible impact on American jazz and swing (as a foreigner, to boot!), and gave mustache doubters a run for their money.
He changed my life, too. Sure, it was really thanks to Limewire that we met (RIAA, plz ignore!!), but without Django’s jaunty strumming, I would have never fallen head over heels — jitterbug style — for swing.
He may not be my hero, but Django was one gosh-darn talented superhuman-human…being.
Many happy returns.
