It’s 1934 at the Hôtel Claridge, a nightclub on the Champs-Élysées. Backstage, a young guitarist by the name of Django Reinhardt is leading an impromptu warm-up set.
In a departure from the standards, Django weaves together popular Parisian Musette tunes with the Romani string rhythms he grew up with and some jazz licks he’s been listening to. Word begins to spread about these backstage sessions, and eventually this becomes the show itself.
Django names his new group the Quintette du Hot Club de France; herein lies the genesis of Jazz Manouche, or Gypsy jazz. A sound that has become inextricably linked with Paris itself, and lives on to this day. That is, if you know where to look.
Word begins to spread about these backstage sessions, and eventually this becomes the show itself.
For musicians in Paris at the time, Django had already achieved folk-hero status. A child virtuoso, he started playing in nightclubs at 15. By the time he was 17, bandleaders from all around Europe were coming to recruit him. When he was 18, a fire ripped through his caravan, leaving him with life-threatening burns and only two usable fingers on his playing hand. Still, the artist developed a new style, and was back on the club circuit by the age of 20.
With the Quintette, Django reached a new level of global acclaim: records, tours, a failed wartime escape (only to be spared by a jazz-loving Luftwaffe officer), Stateside gigs with Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. Then, suddenly, without a clear successor to the sound he created, Django was dead at 43, from a brain hemorrhage.
In the years since, Django has been immortalized in the work of everyone from Jean Cocteau to Woody Allen, and name-checked as an inspiration by musicians the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Paul McCartney, and Willie Nelson. Today in Paris, the Champs-Élysées nightclub where Django found his voice is now a Zara. In fact, Django’s only official acknowledgment in the city where his career began is a small square in the 18th Arrondissement.
With the Quintette, Django reached a new level of global acclaim: records, tours, Stateside gigs with Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong.
Yet, a short walk from Place Django Reinhardt into the neighboring suburb of Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine is La Chope de Puces, an unassuming bar-restaurant that now serves as the spiritual home to Jazz Manouche and Django’s legacy.
In 1963, a decade after Django’s death, Ginette Douville and her husband purchased Chez Marcel, a café and boarding hotel in Saint-Ouen. In a nod to their surroundings—the neighborhood is known for its sprawling flea markets, which date back to 1870—Douville renamed the longtime neighborhood hangout La Chope des Puces, or “the Beer Mug of Fleas.”
As Marcel Campion, La Chope’s current owner, says, it “was a meeting place for the Manouche, who were living at the gates of Paris before the war with their caravans, and this café was a home for them where they could play their music.” Campion, 84, is an accomplished guitarist himself, but is better known in the French broadsheets as “Paris’s Carnival King” and the “Manouche C.E.O.” (He’s a businessman who made his fortune in the French funfair circuit, with a portfolio that includes the Ferris wheel and annual Christmas market in the Tuileries Gardens.)
Early into Douville’s stewardship of La Chope, she recruited Mondine Garcia, a local guitarist, to play on weekends. His run there spanned three owners and nearly 50 years. Garcia formed part of the second wave of Jazz Manouche musicians, many of whom played in Django’s orbit. “Django’s legacy,” as Campion sees it, “is preserved by great musicians such as Biréli Lagrène, Stochelo Rosenberg, Angelo Debarre, and Dorado Schmitt,” all of whom have passed through La Chope’s doors.
Inside La Chope on a recent Saturday afternoon, tables of regulars chatted over orders of moules frites and beer served up by longtime bartender Sylvie Lacombe. Tapping their feet on the tile floor, a handful of devotees craned their necks around the L-shaped bar to stare at the hands of Hugo Guezbar and Steven Reinhardt (a distant relative of Django’s), two Jazz Manouche guitarists performing in the front corner.
While musicians at La Chope come from a mix of backgrounds, many cite Romani roots, and almost all were surrounded by music from childhood. Growing up in France, both Guezbar and Reinhardt began playing guitar around age six, which seems like a prerequisite given the poise and technical skill that it takes to play at this level. As such, a lot of familiar names tend to pop up in La Chope’s roster of musicians. Reinhardt has now taken over the weekend program from Garcia’s son, Ninine, who is himself a torchbearer of Jazz Manouche.
On a set break, Guezbar and Reinhardt step outside for a coffee and a smoke. Reinhardt mentions his first trip to La Chope, when he was 12, pausing to say a quick hello to two guys from the neighborhood. As one leaves, another stops by, and then another, and another, and soon the two are holding court on the sidewalk.
Before they head back in, I ask them about the current state of Jazz Manouche and its prospects for the future.
“I really do think in 50 or 100 years, people will still be playing Django’s music,” Guezbar says.
“Yeah!,” Reinhardt echoes, laughing. “And it’ll be right here at La Chope.”
Bennett DiDonna is a writer from Los Angeles. He divides his time between Florence and Paris
