It’s very early Sunday morning and there’s the sound of rain falling outside the windows of the studio. Still dark and the rain provides a steady rhythm section of sound as it rolls off the leaves of the trees and the roof. Very organic sound that makes me think of music.
I’ve come across a neat video from 1939 featuring Django Reinhardt along with his Quintette du Hot Club de France, featuring violinist Stephane Grappelli. It’s sort of a very early music video. It’s a great chance to see Django’s two-finger playing which has been a huge inspiration to generations of guitarists. It’s also a great chance to see the unique Selmer guitars used by the band’s members, which had the very distinctive oval and D-shaped soundholes. Django’s influence can be seen in the guitar industry today as luthiers around the world still try to reproduce the Selmers that Django made famous but ceased to be made after the early 1950’s. The guitar shown here is a Selmer replicant from Manouche and is as beautiful a piece of craftmanship as you’ll see.
Anyway, here is the acoustic sounds of Django and the Hot Club. Organic sounds for an organic morning…
Redtree Times 
What an interesting entry. I was listening last night to Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny ~ both of these are a little of my beaten tracks, but perhaps it’s the lassitude of August that’s helping to make them so appealing.
I did a bit of exploring but couldn’t find an answer – I played a Selmer clarinet for twenty, twenty-five years. It doesn’t seem the company producing the guitars and the wind instruments was the same, but I’d suspect a connection somehow.
In any event, great summer-Sunday music that led to a little more lazy link-hopping.
Yes, the Selmer of your clarinet was the same one that that made Django’s guita,r although the guitars were made in a semi-independent division of the company that was later bought by Gibson Guitars.
I love guitars. I had the good luck of shooting a short in Boston when the MFA was hosting a show called The Guitar as Art. I think I drooled all over my shirt.
Django, if you aren’t familiar with his story, burned his left hand so badly in a fire that he had limited use of his fingers and had to completely relearn how to play the guitar.
Gives us fumblers with five good fingers either a reason to persevere or maybe just throw all our instruments out into the yard.
Django’s ability with those two fingers makes a huge point about the will of expression, about somehow getting over barriers to somehow communicate.
I, too, love the guitar. Not just the sound but the beauty of the instrument itself. The curves, the luster of the wood and the way it begs to be cradled. I’m surprised more artists don’t use it as a subject.