Consumer Guide Album

Django Reinhardt: Djangology [Bluebird, 2002]
For years the only Django CD I played was the intense, disorderly purple-and-green Koch one from the mid-'30s I bought my wife one Christmas, still findable cheap used and still recommended. But recently I've preferred this somewhat mellower and much more coherent big-label retrospective from 1949, four years before the seminal Gypsy guitarist died at 43. Spiked by his reunion with the sprightly, swinging, indomitable violinist Stéphane Grappelli, who lived to 91 himself, the sessions were skillfully recorded in Italy with the pair's prewar Hot Club of Paris repertoire in mind. The comfortable surety here sacrifices neither swing nor speed despite a rhythm section that doesn't add much. A little Tchaikovsky? A pop chanson called "Où es-tu mon amour?" that would later be covered by Django fan Willie Nelson? As long as the tempo picks up fast enough, only a clod would say no. A