Spatzo (who preferred to remain known by his Manoucheries name)

Here's an interview of Spatzo, a poster on Manoucheries, and excellent guitarist (hear Tears) who has dedicated his life so far to jazz, to Django Reinhardt's spirit and to the search of beauty in music.

1- How long have you been playing guitar, particularly in Django’s style? What moves you in this music? What moves you in the way Django plays?

First of all, thanks for this interview even though I think I’m far from deserving such attention. I’m an ordinary Manoucheries user. I’ve been playing guitar for ages , I think it must be around 40 years, as I was 14 when I bought my first nylon strings guitar in Valencia in Spain, for 500 pesetas, and then I had to learn how to tune it, how to play chords, etc. By the way, the 40 first years are the hardest ones... As I had no clue whatsoever about how to play, I tried to find records where only one instrument could be heard: guitar... I dug in my father’s huge bookcase: the first records were blues with Lightning Hopkins and Big Bill Broonzy, the former being diehard blues, while the latter was more commercial. Very tough! It’s my father who introduced me to jazz, who told me about Django with the help of a few 78rpm, and who handed me a little jazz guitar method written by Roger Chaput! The first thing that amazed me in Django was his capacity to make the chords sound, all the chords with this same intensity, the same volume and sincerity in improvisation: the absolute truth!

2- You are very knowledgeable in harmony and your recent paper on Manoucheries on the way harmony is being taught in Berklee really hit the bull’s eye. How did you get to these conclusions, or at least to these deductions? What drives you to do so much research in the field of harmony? What can harmony bring to improvisation?

At the very beginning, I’ve been disappointed by harmony because when I said to myself that there had to be a book in which one could find a way to retrieve the chords of a tune, I looked for it in vain. I found a little treatise on (classical) harmony in a book shop but when I went out, I dropped it in the gutter, the pages got stuck together... Harmony is very very complex. I then followed a harmony course at Vincennes "Free" University. At the time, I used to busk for a living and I hoped to find there the answers to better accompany the swing tunes that we used to play on the terraces. I read some very interesting material from Jeff Gilson from the SIM school in Paris, I went on with Schoenberg too and with George Russell and his "Lydian Chromatic concept". I never found "the answer" so I went on reading and searching, but little by little, of course, I better understood how it worked. As to the connection between theory and improvisation, it fluctuates a lot, and in any case, it is inversely proportional to your improvisation ability: the least you can improvise, the more your rationale to "enrich" your playing is complex, and when at last you can play, you manage to simplify everything. On one hand, the more you can hear, the less you need to understand, on the other hand, you have to master the tune and therefore have a very simple mental image of it!

3- What is the "four-trick"rule and in what way does it impact improvisation?

This rule consists in analysing all the harmonic situations and in breaking them down into four elements: major chords, minor chords, dominant chords that modulate/resolve, and dominant chords that pretend to modulate/resolve. Its impact on improvisation is obvious in that you no longer needs to think (which is too slow) "Here I can stick a #2 myxomatosis scale", "Here it’s a see-nothing (translator’s note: pun for French Dorian) from the chord’s fifth that works", etc. This kind of rationale and intellectual daub is really a hurdle to learn improvisation, which should amount to freely letting your own music out, open the "krieffian tap" (translator’s note: as in Serge Krief)...

4- A more technical question now. In what way are the arpeggios more suitable than scales to color the Gypsy jazz improvisations? How to make the most of arpeggios, beyond the notes that make the chord?

I think that it stems from the fact that Django used arpeggios a lot and very little scales, all that in a very musical fashion. It’s therefore natural to reciprocate his kindness by doing the same! We will therefore play over 3-note or 4-note chords (triads or seventh chords) and we will add colors (9, 11, 13) according to the context and according to what our ear and heart dictate (to quote Tchavolo).

5- What are the main hurdles on the way from the inner melody to the fingers? How to overcome these obstacles to let the fingers play precisely what’s sung inside?

The main obstacle is the deliberate will to do something else, that is choosing to choose a scheme, thinking in terms of "chops", buying them, and above all refusing to assume our own emotional fragility, refusing to develop our personality to prefer someone else’s. We prefer to pay to be Django, Stochelo, Fapy, etc. rather than to accept what we are. It is easier for us to attempt to metamorphose than to give our own birth a try. That all stems from the current commercialization of this music, from the standardization and cultural impoverishment of the current audiovisual world. Actually, music is a love story, and as we all know, love cannot be bought. In other words, in order to play what’s being sung inside, you first have to have an inner song, and that’s why you need to transcribe improvisations, to pass the sound onto the instrument, and then you have to listen to music, a lot of music. Nowadays, everyone wants to "play like Django" but preferably without listening. The fact that very few people know Django’s tunes proves it! It may also be a question of definition: improvising means playing what you hear and that may be it!

6- What is the "Django 34" project? What is its intimate objective?

The "Django 34" project’s objective is to start analyzing Django’s improvisations from 1934 on - his first steps into jazz. It’s the lightly crazy idea to try to capture beauty from its essence. We managed to break down light into a thing that’s 300.000 km/s fast so theoretically, we should be able to grasp beauty and give that forum a goal...

7- According to you, what are the main characteristics of a good guitar player, and especially a good improvisator guitarist? Beyond the obvious technical questions and mastering of the instrument, what defines beauty in music and particularly in guitar?

A good guitarist is someone who can make his instrument sound and sing; a good improvisator is someone who sincerely plays what he has inside. Beauty in music? That’s a tough question in that it is very subjective and a tad cultural too... It’s the warmth of the sounds, the texture, the atoms that vibrate and echo inside of us in the molecular structure of our emotions.

8- How would you define jazz? And so-called Gypsy jazz?

Jazz is improvisation, it’s the creation of a melody originating from the mix of rhythmic and harmonic syncopations. We know that a syncopation is a sound that begins on a downtime or on the weak part of a time, and that lasts on an uptime or on a strong part of a time. In the jazz harmony, it’s the same thing: the idea is to move the uptime in the measure, to play with the tension and release idea.

Gypsy jazz ? It’s the musical style that shortly predates the Gypsy be-bop... With all kidding aside, it’s a label to pigeon-hole a fashion, a "remix", a "revival" of the music of the Quintette du Hot Club de France, of the French "swing" music of the 30’s-40’s, invented by Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli.

9- You have a huge knowledge of music and musicians, not only from the Django period, but of jazz musicians on all instruments in general. In your opinion, what can musicians playing other instruments bring to jazz guitarists? Further on, what can other arts such as painting, which Django used to do, bring to music?

It has been said many times, playing guitar like a wind-instrument (sax, trumpet, etc.) pushes the guitarist to play different phrases, that actually force him to "breathe", a think he seldom does spontaneously, because it is very easy to play tacatac, to do musical apnea... The other arts - I don’t know - Django used to say that music and painting were two different beasts. If there ever was a connection, this connection is hidden, unacknowledged, it can be a source of inspiration (danse, poetry, colors, etc.).

10- With the technical means available in the 20’s-30’s, there is much to be amazed at with the way Django not only learned jazz that was brand new in France, but also how he appropriated it and mixed it with his own influences, and the whole thing being crippled in his left hand. What makes Django so unique? What are the characteristics of his genius?

Now that’s a very complex question ! In the 20’s-30’s, one learned everything by ear. Later one could slow down 78 rpms down to 33 rpm speed, in order to better grasp the fast lines. Lucky enough, Savitry was in Toulon with his jazz records and he met Django, and Django met jazz. Django is unique because he had no model, he’s a creator, a precursor, because there was no serious jazz guitar improvisator by then. His kind of band was also brand new in jazz: a string-based quintette, that was never seen before!

11- Could you speak of the influence of Django’s journey to the States on his musical universe? What changed in his playing after that? What was the impact on the French jazz? How did he integrate be-bop in his vocabulary?

Django’s journey to the States is a topic that is of great interest to me: it’s the symbol of Django’s consecration as a jazz musician, whether you like it or not. It’s also the meeting of Django with the mother country of jazz, and the observation of its notable evolution during war time though Django was aware of it by listening to American records at the Hot Club on Chaptal Street. For some, it’s a failure, he comes back to France and does not settle in the States, he misses the Carnegie Hall concert, etc. Delaunay too says that Django dreamt of Hollywood, of cinema, and that he was disappointed by the fact that it was not so. I think Django thought of the States through such perceptions but I mostly think that in 1946, Django was no longer by far the same Django as in the 30’s. Django comes back from the States because his 60-day visa has expired and he brings back a lot of musical ideas in his luggage - he is the only direct witness as a mucisian of what really goes on in the States at the time - he feels the evolution of jazz, he appreciates it and he decides to devote himself body and soul to it! But be careful! The integration of be-bop in Django does not happen through the acquisition of a vocabulary. We will not find any "chop" from Parker or Dizzy in his playing. The integration happens through the progressive development of a new lexicon, all the way to 1953, the date when his works ended...

12- Similarly, what has electric guitar changed in Django? How did he adapt his playing?

Django was already playing electric guitar in 1946, but it is clear that he waited for the birth of the Stimer in 1947, when he came back from the States if I’m not mistaken, when Guen created this mike and exhibited it on the Stimer stand during the Foire de Paris on a beautiful Selmer by the way... Guen is the one who understood what Django needed! The paying changes with the sustain, the work on sound, which has always been obvious in Django right from the start, becomes amplified, and the clear-cut sound makes its first appearance, which is a pure wonder...

13- Gypsy music has made a come-back for the past 10 years after 40 years being played in closed circles, and even sometimes considered as has-been, especially by the contemporaneous jazzmen. Why such a disparagement in your opinion? Conversely, what is the heirs’ motivation to go on in Django’s tradition by trying to find and to preserve Django’s spirit alive? In you opinion, who are those important well known or less known heirs?

Yes, it has not changed, I mean, contemporaneous jazzmen - at least many of them - continue to consider this music as an easy music, while they play more complex stuff. They are real mathematicians, engineers, not poets! The harmonic sequences are so simple, so elementary, that it makes them smile. But they very often have forgotten what music is and thst’s the reason why jazz has been in a bad way for quite a long time. I simply believe they haven’t listened to Django. I can go from Bix to Dolphy; from Armstrong to Coltrane, from Fats Waller to Roland Kirk, or from Django to Albert Ayler, without bother. I go from HQC to the Sun Ra orchestra or to the Art Ensemble of Chicago with disconcerting ease. To me, it is the same music!

The heirs are those who, through innovation or not, draw their inspiration from Django, when it was not paying off any more after his death. I think we are going to introduce quite a few of them on the (Manoucheries) forum. I started with the son of one of them, Samson, Pithon Reinhardt’s son. There’s also Maurice Ferret and Joseph Pouville, the Garcia from Saint-Ouen of course. There are many! This is a wide topic and we would need an Antonietto to cover this satisfactorily. In his absence, we can still try. I find it thrilling to be able to hear the "Django" jam sessions from the 60’s, to talk about how the elders used to play, and "Nedjar, say, Nedjar, how was he ?" and "The Roue Fleurie, was it good?"

14- Can we be loyal to Django’s spirit without copying him or with a limited technique? From this viewpoint, who are the current guitarists you admire and why? Besides, in this style, do we have to be loyal to Django’s spirit?

Being loyal to Django’s spirit, yes, because it means "be yourself, develop your own style, and that can be done, that must be done without copying him! You can steal, integrate, digest, in one word appropriate ideas and sounds, but there has to be a transformation. We should refuse that Django’s solos be played note for note just to sound like him... This is no longer jazz. In any case, I’m not interested in that. And what for?

In this spirit, walking the line between innovation and tradition, there are not so many and Krief is one of them, probably ahead, but I listened a lot, I listen and appreciate, among others, in the order of appearance on the screen, Romane, Raffalli, Debarre, Fapy, Fays, Tchavolo, Dorado, Mandino, Biréli of course... I know less the other ones who came recently, Moignard and the likes, but it is clear that they are very good!

15- What are the things you would still like to learn? The projects you would like to realize?

To quote Boris (Vian) "I would not like to snuff it" without using my pick in dodgy recesses, not before I really understand how to "brush" against this guitar as it should be done, not before I hear the music, I do not mean know how to play it or anything, I really mean hear...

16- If you want to talk about something else, now’s the time !

Coffee !