Django 1966 -

But the most intriguing artifact of 1966 is this:

British guitarist , in 1966, was cutting his first singles with The Yardbirds. Beck's wild, bent-note, whammy-bar abandon owed more to Django's emotional bends than to B.B. King's vibrato. Listen to "Jeff's Boogie" (1966) 鈥� it's pure hot club velocity. Similarly, Jimmy Page , still a session ace in '66, would later confess his debt to Django's triplet runs and percussive attack.

In 1938, Django was a genius of acoustic immediacy 鈥� his Selmer-Maccaferri guitar cutting through a string band with the velocity of a horn. He didn't read music; he played fire. By 1946, he had tried electric guitar, even toured with Duke Ellington, but the results were mixed. He felt lost in the big band. He returned to Europe, played in a style that seemed increasingly nostalgic. django 1966

Even , that autumn of '66, was forming The Jimi Hendrix Experience. His use of thumb-over-the-neck chording, his explosive arpeggios, and his instinct for melodic dissonance 鈥� these are Djangoid traits, filtered through blues and LSD.

It is simply Django 鈥� in the year the world forgot him, but needed him most. No recording of Django Reinhardt exists from 1966 because he died in 1953. But the music that carried his DNA 鈥� from Babik Reinhardt to Jeff Beck to Bir茅li Lagr猫ne to the millions of guitarists who still practice his solos 鈥� proves that Django never truly left. He just changed frequencies. But the most intriguing artifact of 1966 is

Introduction: The Man Who Wasn't There By 1966, Django Reinhardt had been dead for thirteen years. The Belgian-born Romani guitarist, who had revolutionized European jazz in the 1930s and '40s with his astonishing two-fingered solos and the quintessentially French sound of the Hot Club de France , was a fading memory for the mainstream. The world had moved on. The year 1966 was the apex of the counterculture: Bob Dylan had gone electric and was reviled for it at Newport; the Beatles had just recorded Revolver ; the Beach Boys were lost in the labyrinths of Pet Sounds ; and Jimi Hendrix was about to set his guitar on fire in London. Amplification, feedback, fuzz, and sitars ruled the airwaves.

But in the smoky basements of Paris, in the caravan camps of Northern Europe, and in the obsessive grooves of a handful of young guitarists, the spirit of Django Reinhardt was not only alive 鈥� it was mutating. Listen to "Jeff's Boogie" (1966) 鈥� it's pure

Now imagine that same man, nineteen years later, in 1966. He is 56 years old. He has survived war, poverty, fame, and neglect. His hands still work. He picks up a Fender Stratocaster 鈥� the tool of the new gods. He doesn't know what to do with the whammy bar. But he plays the opening phrase of "Nuages." The notes float into a Leslie speaker. The sound spins.