Django Reinhardt Stamp

This post features the French Django Reinhardt stamp of 1993. Musicians are common on postage stamps, but jazz musicians only began to appear on stamps beginning in the 1970s. During that decade, many African countries created stamps featuring jazz African-American musicians. Louis Armstrong regularly toured the continent during his lifetime and after his death in 1971, he was honored with stamps from many countries. In the 1990s, many jazz musicians appeared on U.S. stamps as part of the Legends of American Music series. Make sure to check out my article about the history of jazz stamps.

Django Reinhardt

Jean Reinhardt was born in 1910 to a Belgian-French-Romani family. He grew up in Romani camps in France where he was able to learn violin, banjo, and guitar. His father was a pianist and led a family band of musicians. The young Reinhardt became a virtuoso guitar player by copying older Romani musicians, and was able to support himself as a musician by the age of 15.

After marrying at the age of 17, Reinhardt’s career began to take off. His first recording was on a banjo-guitar playing back up to accordionist Maurice Alexander. Musicians from as far away as Britain came to France to hear Reinhardt play, however, he still was playing traditional Romani and French songs and not yet jazz.

One night in his wagon, he knocked over a candle and started a huge fire. While he and his wife were able to escape, he was badly injured, with burns covering much of his body. His fourth and fifth fingers of his left hand were badly damaged. He never was able to regain the use of these fingers, so he developed a new technique for performing using his available fingers.

Jazz

In the late 1920s, Reinhardt first heard American jazz records including those of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Reinhard began to try and replicate this jazz music and son after met a young violinist named Stéphane Grappelli who had a similar interest. The two began to play together, jamming late into the night as they learned the basics of jazz and developed their own sound.

In 1934, they created the Quinteette du Hot Club in Paris. It was the first European jazz group to find success and have an influence on American music. It was unusual for the time as it was a jazz group featuring stringed instruments (including Grappelli’s violin) instead of wind instruments. Their style became known as “hot jazz.” Their fame grew so that American jazz musicians visiting Europe would come to their performances and often gig with them, including Coleman Hawkins, Louis Armstrong, and Dizzy Gillespie.

Reinhardt spend World War II in France. He had a difficult existence, avoiding Nazi arrest for being Romani, and not playing often as jazz was greatly restricted. Afterwards, Reinhardt and Grappelli brought their group to the United States where they had enormous success, including playing two nights at the end of their tour in Carnegie Hall. He continued to have enormous success in both Europe and the United States in the subsequent years. However, at the age of 43, Django Reinhardt died of a brain hemorrhage. Learn more about Django Reinhardt and hot jazz at this site.

The Stamp

The design for the 1993 stamp features a close up portrait of Reinhardt, as well as depicting him playing guitar. The images are sketch-like and bleed into one another. Mostly these images are in blue while the print on the stamp is in black. However, the fingerboard of the guitar has splotches of yellow, red, and orange. These hot colors may suggest Reinhardt’s fast playing and the “hot jazz” for which he was famous. The design is by the French artist Raymond Moretti (1931-2005).

Make sure to check out some of Django Reinhardt’s Music: