django's room sound

[duane]

hello,

wondering if anyone has any insight into what kind of rooms django reinhardt would have done most of his recordings in. i think this would roughly be like 1920-1940 mostly in France.

thanks,
duane

[kylen]

I have some remastered sets done by Ted Kendall - they sound pretty good actually considering they were lifted from 78's.

The set you'd be most interested in is 'Django Reinhardt - The Classic Early Recordings...'

CD #1 covers 1934-1935 and the liner notes (written by Stan Britt 1992) talk about a small record company named Ultraphone which was on Avenue du Maine in Paris. It doesn't discuss the recording room as such but mentions that the building itself was like an "all-lit hanger...had once operated as an organ factory".

CD #2 covers the early war years, 1938-1939, and recordings from London Decca sessions. The London sessions studios listed were Decca - Upper Thames Street, London EC4. Also Broadhurst Gardens, London NW6 was used. There were also Paris Decca sessions around the same time on CD#3, 1938-1939, but the quality is not as good as the London sessions.

CD #4 is back to some earlier recordings in Paris from 1935-1936 for both Decca and HMV records.

If you contact Stan Britt or Ted Kendall they may have some more info on the rooms used for recording. There doesn't seem to be much in the liner notes. There may be some recording anecdotes on some of the Django websites that a goole search would bring up. There are certainly a lot of Django stories floating around...

[petimar]

For all you Django fans, check out these videos

http://www.about-django.com/news/videos/videos.php

AMAZING!!!

[kylen]

Django smokes in those videos for sure ! The fastest and most articulate 2-finger picker I've ever seen...one of my all time favorites

The music itself is a breath of fresh air - at the time it was simply revolutionary...

[kylen]

OK - I pulled out my 'Django Reinhardt' biography by Charles Delaunay which explains the circumstances at Ultraphone a bit more...

"On a foggy morning the musicians wended their way into the enormous ill-lit hangar on the Avanue du Maine which served as a studio...Littered with benches and equipment, it was more like a provincial palace of varieties backstage than a recording studio. The five musicians seemed lost in this great barracks of a place. In point of fact, the great wooden building was an organ factory and it was here that Gabriel Pierne made his records."

The Delaunay also contains an exhaustive discography which may also be on-line that may name other recording 'studios'. Apparantly HMV (His Masters Voice) contracted with the Gramaphone Company following the Hot Clubs stint with Ultraphone records.

As far as recording in large warehouse type rooms goes I guess it could either sound good or bad depending on how soon the sounds reflected, absorption, etc. Apparantly Ultraphone was a large wooden building so depending on where stuff was stacked it might have been well suited for the job. I've been in larger buildings where, if the musicians don't overdrive the place, the sound is pretty beautiful. Also these guys were all unamplified at the time...

[Treeline]

Wow. Nice videos!

[Track Rat]

It's amasing to watch him play with TWO FINGERS. Jeezus that's cool!

[TexRoadkill]

Imagine how much better he could have been if he only used another finger ot two.

[kylen]

Originally Posted by TexRoadkill

Imagine how much better he could have been if he only used another finger ot two.

True - up until Nov 2, 1928 he has able to use his full left hand. I don't have any recordings of that although he was recorded playing banjo as Jiango Renard in 1928. I guess that's partly where he got such a strong right hand rhythm - his banjo style transfeered over to guitar. After the 1928 fire he was down to 2 fingers for lead solos. What a sound he got !