Stephane Grappelli, Pink Floyd and Me...

After playing classical music, I decided to play jazz when I was fifteen years old... In my youth, I heard this novelty music and liked it. I thought: instead of being a second-rate classical musician, I preferred to try and be a first-rate jazz musician. And as my instrument was a little difficult to play jazz on, I didn’t expect a lot of competition. But really, you can play jazz with any instrument. I was a violinist; so I played jazz music on a violin. Things were not easy for me at the beginning in Paris, because at the time only the saxophone had the privilege to play jazz—or piano, drums, banjo, trumpet, trombone—but no violinist. But we had a chance when the guitar started. 

               Stephane Grappelli

Jazz technique is absolutely unlike classical playing, because jazz is an improvisation all the time. To be a jazzman, you need to be a good musician: To improvise, it means you must not only like music, you must produce some of your own. Ordinary musicians who work, say, in the opera, they play very well, of course, but everything is written down. There are, naturally, very bad jazz musicians, but the good ones are those who can improvise. It is their own work on a theme of somebody else. 

               Stephane Grappelli

Paris Encounter (1972) signed by Stephane, Gary Burton

I was amazed and full of admiration for this way of playing the violin, which I had never heard before. It is both an improvisatory technique and a remarkable violinistic technique as well. It is something that happens spontaneously, as it were; yet he has a sureness of touch so that he never seems to be off the rails. He is like a wonderful juggler who throws plates and pots into the air and miraculously catches them again.”

Yehudi Menuhin on Stephane, 1972 interview

Unlike Django, I like a classical life. I like everything classical. I don't like that abstract business. I like Louis Quatorze, the music of Couperin and Rameau, but I always come back to jazz music. Not so much to the great jazz violinists, but rather to pianist Art Tatum. For me, my god is Art Tatum. Tatum's melodic line is influenced by Ravel and Debussy, you know, and by orchestral work. Art Tatum is an orchestra. I've played with Count Basie, Joe Turner, John Lewis, Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson, Erroll Garner, Fats Waller … but, alas, never Art Tatum. My greatest ambition is to be the Art Tatum of the violin. That's why I want to keep good health and try to go on."

Stephane Grappelli, Rolling Stone 1977

One of the most unusual tracks that jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli played on in his seventy year career was not released until 2011, nearly fourteen years after his death. It was an unlikely collaboration in a career full of them. In 1975, Stephane was at Abbey Road studios recording with master classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin, and next door, Pink Floyd was working on their masterpiece, Wish You Were Here. Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason remembered the circumstances, "We were recording in Studio Three and Yehudi and Stephane were recording in Two. They were invited in to hear what we were working on." Both violinists were asked to join, but Menuhin declined. "He was not comfortable improvising, he was nervous," Mason recalled. Not so for Stephane, "It was meat and drink for him." Incredibly, this alternate version of the title track “Wish You Were Here", lay undiscovered in studio vaults for the next thirty-six years, until Pink Floyd remastered the album and found the buried and missing track. Mason recounted, "My understanding was that we'd had to record over it in order to put on other sections. It still astonishes me that we didn't use it originally, didn't realize what a wonderful thing it was." Thank goodness for studio archives and vaults, for at long last, this recording saw the light of day in 2011 and introduced Grappelli (albeit posthumously) to the rabid ears of the voracious Pink Floyd fan base.

Stephane Grappelli is probably best known and revered for his recordings with the Gypsy guitar genius Django Reinhardt in Paris during the 1930s and 1940s. Django's fingers on his fret hand were badly burned (and subsequently paralyzed) in a caravan fire when he was seventeen, and he had to relearn the guitar with the use of only two fingers and a thumb. Stephane remembered their humble beginnings in a 1970 interview: "We originally formed the quintet with Django Reinhardt when we were very young but again, we did not have the opportunity to continue then, because nobody believed in that music. Much later on, we were able to present our music, as the Hot Club Of France Quintet, when the people realized we could play jazz on the guitar and the violin—not only the saxophone, clarinet and so on. Django was exactly like me. And he not only improvised with melody, he tried and he succeeded in reproducing on a guitar the effect of a large orchestra. Yes, he was the first. I think everybody playing the guitar today, all those rock groups with the three guitars, were inspired by Django Reinhardt. Because we were the first to start a group with three guitars—at a time when there was no electricity behind us. We had to play without electric noise, which, in my opinion, is a bit more difficult."

Although Django was well known for his fluid runs on guitar and his stately compositions despite being functionally illiterate, he was quite a character off stage, befitting his nomadic and rather undisciplined lifestyle. Stephane recalled his frustrations, "Django made me very angry. Django would not be there, we could not find him anywhere. He drank every day, he came (to performances) with no guitar. I gave Django my money. I hated him many times. Ooh ... but when he played, I loved Django! Everyone loved Django." And Django's influence, far and wide, outdistanced his short life (he died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1953, aged forty-three). From Jimmy Page to Jeff Beck to Black Sabbath's Tommy Iommi (who suffered the loss of two fingers in a boyhood accident), to the Allman Brothers Dickey Betts who wrote "Jessica" in tribute, to the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia, also missing part of a finger, Django Reinhardt is a towering influence. No less a guitar god than Jimi Hendrix pledged fealty when he named his last band, Band Of Gypsys in homage to Django. Perhaps, Jerry Garcia summed it up best in 1985: "His technique is awesome! Even today, nobody has really come to the state that he was playing at. As good as players are, they haven’t gotten to where he is. There's a lot of guys that play fast and a lot of guys that play clean, and the guitar has come a long way as far as speed and clarity go, but nobody plays with the whole fullness of expression that Django has. I mean, the combination of incredible speed – all the speed you could possibly want – but also the thing of every note have a specific personality. You don’t hear it. I really haven’t heard it anywhere but with Django." And Stephane, his equal on violin, was pushing Django's limitless talents far beyond.

A Two-Fer! (1979) signed by Stephane, Hank Jones, Jimmy Woode

At the outset of World War II, Stephane was In London and he stayed there for the duration, whilst Django fled for parts unknown. Stephane discovered an equally talented pianist in George Shearing and began performing with him. It had to be a harrowing experience, playing in jazz clubs while the Blitz was going on, bombs going off suddenly and landing indiscriminately. Stephane recollected, "I played with George for the troops. And the bombs dropped quite often. I remember one time we finished up playing in a club in Golders Green. The sirens started, so we flew out of there to get to the deepest underground station nearby, which was Hampstead Heath. We started walking fast down the street, and George said: 'There's no need to run, we're underground.' He didn't know where we were because he was blind."

Stephane survived the bombs and the war, and he went on to release more than ninety albums, jamming with classical artists Yo Yo Ma, Yehudi Menuhin, bluegrass wizards David Grisman, Vassar Clements, and jazz legends Hank Jones, Oscar Peterson, McCoy Tyner and so many others. I saw him perform with guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli and bassist John Burr at the Baird Auditorium in Washington, DC in 1993. The Baird is part of the Smithsonian and it is a lovely auditorium with great acoustics and a seating capacity for around five-hundred patrons. Stephane and his colleagues emerged from the backstage to thunderous applause, and Stephane took his seat, the only concession to his advanced age. As pianist Michel Legrand noted while recording with him at the roughly the same time, "He walks with difficulty, of course, but his job is not to walk, it is to play, and his playing is truly better than ever. He has all the inspiration and depth of his many years, but has the passion and enthusiasm of a twenty-year-old! He is formidable!" For the next ninety minutes, Stephane and his able cohorts took us on a journey through the Great American Songbook: Cole Porter's "Night and Day", Duke Ellington's "In A Sentimental Mood", George Gershwin's "Fascinating Rhythm" and Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's "Spring Is Here” were highlights. The music was full of twists and turns throughout and featured the indomitable good cheer of Stephane Grappelli. He had the appearance of a benevolent grandfather, that is, if your grandfather happened to be a virtuoso violinist whose searing, violent slashes tore through to the very essence of your soul. Seated, he seemed to be having the most fun of all. Near the end of the performance, as things quieted down, they performed Django Reinhardt's luminous "Nuages", a showcase for Bucky's guitar chops and he did not disappoint.

After the show, I went backstage for a visit with the maestro. He was warm and full of kindness as he signed the vinyl. I thanked him for his time and, especially the music. I was reminded of what the great show man Maurice Chevalier told him early in his career, “You must start very well, finish very well, and in the middle, it is nobody’s business.” To which Stephane replied, “But me, I try to do the business in the middle, too.” Yes, he does, and we are all the richer for it. C’est formidable!

At The Winery (1982) signed by Stephane

Choice Stephane Grappelli Cuts (per BKs request)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p98UZxdlKRM

"Wish You Were Here" Pink Floyd alternate track 1975

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANArGmr74u4

"J'Attendrai Swing" Django and Stephane 1939

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4kf5aU1Wtg

"How High The Moon" live with McCoy Tyner, 1991

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMuNjobfR3Y

"Sweet Georgia Brown" Live in San Francisco with David Grisman and friends 1982

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2T2_pk1iwQM

“Nuages” with Django Reinhardt

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fnB8E_N6M1Q

“Nuages” Live with Julian Bream

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dzIEaNRoj3k

“Jalousie” Live with Yehudi Menuhin

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GIbL9uw139s

“Dawgma - Swing ‘39” Stephane and David Grisman on Tonight Show with Johnny Carson 1979

All signed albums from the Kirk vinyl collection

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