 I was going through my collection of photographs of Django Reinhardt when I came across this one.
I had saved it long ago, apparently without recording where I found it. I wasn’t even certain it was Django. But there was something about the photograph that made me stop. Five men sit around a little table on an outdoor terrace, guitars in hand, coffee cups and hats scattered among them. Beyond them are trees, sunlight and what looks unmistakably like the south of France. Where was this? And was that really Django? It turns out that I had stumbled back into one of my favorite stories about him. The photograph was taken by Émile Savitry in Toulon, around 1930–31. Savitry himself is in the picture, along with Django, his brother Joseph—Nin-Nin—and two other musicians. And this casual little gathering occurred at an extraordinary moment in Django’s life. Not long before, Django had emerged from the long ordeal that followed the fire in his caravan. His left hand had been terribly damaged, and during his convalescence he had essentially taught himself to play the guitar again, inventing a technique that accommodated the two injured fingers that would never regain their former movement. Then he and Naguine set off for the south. Michael Dregni, whose Django: The Life and Music of a Gypsy Legend has long been my guide to Django’s world, describes an almost unbelievable journey. Django and Naguine traveled on foot from Paris toward Nice—a trek of roughly a thousand kilometers. They slept in haystacks and survived however they could, Naguine sometimes earning money by reading palms and telling fortunes. Eventually Django reached Toulon, where he found his brother Nin-Nin. The brothers began playing their guitars in cafés and along the waterfront, passing their hats for whatever people might give them. And one evening Émile Savitry heard them. Savitry was a painter, photographer, amateur guitarist and splendid bohemian who had recently returned from the Pacific. He was staying above the Café des Lions near the harbor when he heard the brothers playing. By the time he rushed downstairs to find the musicians, they had already moved on, so he went looking for them. He found them. That chance encounter became a friendship. Savitry discovered that the brothers were nearly starving and began feeding them. When he had to leave Toulon briefly, he simply handed them the key to his apartment and told them to make themselves at home. When he returned, Django, Nin-Nin and Naguine had indeed made themselves at home. Instead of being annoyed, Savitry seems to have been delighted that he had not lost his musicians. But perhaps the greatest gift he gave Django wasn’t food or shelter. It was music. Savitry had brought back records of the American jazz that was transforming music across the Atlantic. He played Django Duke Ellington, the violin and guitar of Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang, and Louis Armstrong. Django had heard jazz before, but he had never heard anything quite like this. Dregni tells of Django listening to Armstrong, putting his head in his hands and crying out in astonishment. Something had happened. He had heard a musical language that seemed to speak directly to him. I love imagining that moment. The Django in this photograph is not yet the Django whose name would become inseparable from Stéphane Grappelli and the Quintette du Hot Club de France. He is a young man who has survived a catastrophe, reinvented the way he plays his instrument, walked across France with the woman he loves, played for coins in cafés—and then happened to meet a generous stranger with a collection of records. Looking at the photograph now, knowing all of that, it seems different to me. Nothing announces that history is happening. Nobody is posing as a legend. They are simply sitting around a café table on the Côte d’Azur, guitars resting across their laps, drinking coffee and talking. But somewhere around that table, a door has opened. And Django is about to walk through it. Click link to continue to next chapter: The Freedom to Go Comments are closed.
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