Family F
Reinhardt
Django’s line — Manouche / German Sinti
Manouche — Belgium / France; German Sinti kin
Style: Gypsy jazz / Jazz manouche
Jean “Django” Reinhardt made the public name of gypsy jazz. Schnuckenack Reinhardt, German Sinti of the same surname, rebuilt the music on German stages after the Porajmos. Kinship, not one household.
Django was born 1910 into a Manouche family that already played. Paris jazz gave the family right hand a new room: the Quintette du Hot Club de France, with Stéphane Grappelli. He did not invent Sinti music. He named it for the century.
Franz “Schnuckenack” Reinhardt (1921–2006) was a German Sinti violinist of the same name, driven east in 1938. He never met Django. After the war his quintet put Sinti swing back in German rooms so a public that had tried to erase it would have to hear it.
Musik Deutscher Zigeuner, Da Camera Song. Volume 1, February 1969. Volume 4, April 1972. Wikipedia: first concert of the quintet, November 1967, Heidelberg. Häns’che Weiss on lead guitar for the later volumes, then his own quintet in 1972. Folklore and swing on the same discs. The chairs are not merged into this family.
Lineage
Birth and death on a vertical line — generation by generation. Places are listed where we could find them.
Generation 1
Django Reinhardt
Guitar, composer · 1910–1953
Born 23 January 1910 · Liberchies, Pont-à-Celles, Belgium — Died 16 May 1953 · Fontainebleau, France (Samois-sur-Seine)
Jean Reinhardt, Manouche. Quintette du Hot Club de France. Died of a brain haemorrhage, aged 43.
Generation 1
Franz “Schnuckenack” Reinhardt
Violin, bandleader · 1921–2006
Born 17 February 1921 · Weinsheim, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany — Died 15 April 2006 · Sankt Leon-Rot, Germany
Franz Reinhardt, German Sinti. Same surname as Django; they never met. Driven east in 1938. After the war, Sinti swing on German stages.
Generation 3
Stéphane Grappelli
Violin · 1908–1997
Born 26 January 1908 · Paris, France — Died 1 December 1997 · Paris, France
Not Romani. The other half of the Quintette records.
Orchestra years
When the band was founded, when it split, when a new generation took the stand.
1934
New orchestra
Django and Grappelli
Quintette du Hot Club de France
The records that named gypsy jazz. Manouche guitar, Paris jazz, pompe.
1953
Band ends
Django dies
Django’s groups
The family style continues in other Reinhardt and Sinti hands.
1960s
New orchestra
German Sinti on stage again
Schnuckenack Reinhardt Quintett
A Reinhardt of another country rebuilds the music after the Porajmos.
Neighbours
Same country or city, but a different way of playing.
- Lagrène — Manouche — Alsace, France
- Limberger — Manouche / Sinti — Belgium (and the Dutch border)
- Reyes / Baliardo — Gitane — Arles / Montpellier, southern France
- Ferret — Manouche — Paris