Word: django
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...kleptomaniac, pimp and all-around heel, who somehow comes off as a nice guy despite himself. The running joke of the movie is that Emmet Ray is the second greatest jazz guitarist of his time, and the two times that Emmet has encountered number one, the real-life figure Django Reinhardt (this Gypsy guitar player from France), he fainted on sight. Penn handles the movies many slapstick moments with gusto, including a terrific scene in which Emmet crashes through the roof of a counterfeiting operation in an attempt to escape a third meeting with Django. These moments of light comedy...
...Paris. Grappelli started out as a pianist for silent films but switched to strings for the swing standards he loved. America had Ellington, but Europe got the Quintet of the Hot Club of France in the 1930s--the chamber group-cum-jazz ensemble that featured Grappelli and guitarist Django Reinhardt. The quintet broke up during World War II, but Grappelli played on--recording more than 100 albums...
Original compositions on this album tend to sound uneventful and sometimes unoriginal, and while it's admirable that Grisman and Rice included string versions of such diverse tunes as the Django Reinhardt/Stephane Grapelli jazz tune "Swing '42," and the perennial Italian wedding favorite "O Sole Mio," neither of these tunes have any relation to American folk music, nor do they sound particularly interesting performed on guitar and mandolin. Sometimes a jazz tune is just plain better when played by jazz musicians on traditional jazz instruments...