The Guitar Plugged · Guitarist Index
Django Reinhardt
Quintette du Hot Club de France
1928–1953
Jazz · Acoustic/Fingerstyle
Two working fingers, an acoustic archtop, and the birth of European jazz guitar.
Main guitar
Selmer-Maccaferri acoustic
Signature sound
Bright, percussive acoustic attack with enormous volume and swing
Era
1928–1953
Influence
94 / 100
Genre
Jazz / Acoustic/Fingerstyle
Why they matter
Two working fingers, an acoustic archtop, and the birth of European jazz guitar.
A caravan fire in 1928 left Reinhardt with two usable fretting fingers on his left hand. He rebuilt his entire technique around that limitation and became the most inventive guitarist in the world, playing melodic lines and chord solos that most players cannot execute with five fingers.
With violinist Stéphane Grappelli he created gypsy jazz — an entirely acoustic, string-driven jazz that did not depend on American swing bands and remains a living tradition today.
He is the first guitarist on this list chronologically who was unambiguously a virtuoso by any standard, and the influence runs through everyone from Wes Montgomery to Tony Iommi, who took direct courage from Reinhardt's injury.
The sound
Bright, percussive acoustic attack with enormous volume and swing
Minor Swing
Pure acoustic Selmer projection — the volume and cut come entirely from technique and instrument design.
Nuages
Softer, more lyrical attack showing how much dynamic control he had without amplification.
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Style & technique
How you recognise the playing
Two-finger technique
Full melodic and chordal vocabulary executed with two functioning fretting fingers.
La pompe rhythm
The driving acoustic rhythm guitar pulse that defines gypsy jazz.
Chromatic and arpeggio runs
Fast, precise diminished and chromatic passages played entirely acoustically.
Octave and tremolo devices
Tremolo-picked octaves and rapid repeated notes used for dramatic build.
The rig
Instruments, amplification and effects
- Selmer-Maccaferri Modèle Jazz
- Various acoustic archtops
- Occasional early electric amplification in the late 1940s
- None
- Heavy gauge strings and a thick plectrum for volume in an unamplified band
Essential listening
Where to start
- 011937
Minor Swing
Quintette du Hot Club de France · Minor Swing
- 021940
Nuages
Django Reinhardt · Nuages
- 031948
Djangology
Django Reinhardt · Djangology
- 041942
Belleville
Django Reinhardt · Belleville
Career landmarks
The moments that mattered
Inventing gypsy jazz
A complete jazz idiom built without American big bands or amplification.
Playing with two fingers
The most famous adaptation to injury in music history.
The legacy
Lineage
Influenced by
Eddie Lang
Louis Armstrong
Romani musette tradition
Influenced
Adjacent players
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