Bio

Django Reinhardt was born in Pont-a-Celles, Belgium in 1910. He was born into a Romani family, and lived for much of his early life inside their encampments outside of Paris. He was introduced to music at an early age, starting to play the violin at age 12. Around age 18,  Django suffered a terrible accident; the wagon that he slept in caught fire one night. He was badly burned all over his body, including his left hand. He had to spend 18 months in the hospital recovering. When he left the hospital, he was unable to use two fingers on his left hand, and was forced to practice a new technique for playing the guitar. He developed his own unique method of playing, he only used his index and his middle finger to play notes, and the fingers that he no longer had use of were used for block chords. His agile melodies imposed with and over the block chords would be a hallmark of his unique style, one of the first jazz talents to emerge from Europe. Some musicians that he played with are, Stephane Grappelli, Duke Ellington, Benny Carter and Coleman Hawkins.