As a longtime Djangomaniac,
the offer to recreate two of Reinhardt's greatest tracks for the film
Head in the Clouds was an exciting challenge—but the
chance to play him in the movie as well was unbelievable! For the film,
which takes place in France in the 1930s, director John Duigan (Sirens,
Flirting) wanted to use two tracks by the Quintet of the Hot Club
of France for a pivotal scene in which characters played by Penélope
Cruz and Charlize Theron meet in a ritzy, Parisian club on Christmas
Eve, 1936, and dance together to the music of the QHCF. But since the
fidelity of the original recordings would not match the newly recorded
dialogue and soundtrack, Duigan needed to find someone to recreate those
classic recordings. After trying a few other musicians, the film's music
supervisor, Scott Siletto, tracked me down. I was thrilled, and having
studied and played Reinhardt's music for 25 years, I felt well up to
the challenge. Duigan listened to some examples of my work and agreed
that I was the man for the job. My band was touring in Italy while this
was happening, so I was checking my email every day on the hotel office's
computer.
When I spoke with Duigan,
he mentioned that he needed someone to play Django on-camera as well.
I told him I would do whatever it took to be able to play that part
in addition to recording the music—cut and dye my hair, grow a
mustache, whatever! He joked that he could have the prosthetics department
make something for my left hand so it would look burned and scarred
like Django's. "Cool, that would be great!" I said. "But
how could you play?" he asked. "No problem," I told him,
"I learned Django's solos with two fingers anyway!"
Siletto requested a budget
for recording in Nashville, so, while still in Italy, I set up a session
with vintage mics in a large studio that would allow all five musicians
to play together but had enough isolation to let us fix individual parts.
Not easy to manage from another time zone! But after I made the arrangements,
I got a phone call informing me that due to a Canadian content rule
(which gives the film production company substantial tax breaks in Canada),
the music had to be recorded in Canada using Canadian musicians (a variance
would be obtained for me).
This turn of events threw
me. I wasn't sure I could deliver the music up to my standards with
players, engineers, and a studio I knew nothing about, and I nearly
bowed out. The new music supervisor, Jean Robitaille, assured me that
everything would work out, even though the Canadian studio could only
fit one or two players at a time. After a little soul searching, I decided
to trust Jean and agreed to come up to Montreal. Since the film was
coproduced by a Canadian (Remstar) and UK company (Dakota Films), I
was able to bring my buddy and favorite rhythm guitarist, Andy MacKenzie,
from Manchester, England, so there was at least one other player I knew
I could count on.
I had already learned Django's
parts, and Andy flew to Nashville to help me transcribe the bass, violin,
and rhythm guitar parts. We determined that on "Blue Drag,"
recorded by the QHCF in 1935, one rhythm player (probably Django's brother
Joseph) played closed chords in the traditional four-beat Hot Club style
and the other rhythm player (likely Roger Chaput) played a more bluegrass-style
bass-note/open chord part. The bass part was difficult to pick out and
had a lot of nonroot tones, plus a few mistakes. We listened to it on
several different boom boxes and Discmans to determine the actual part,
sometimes with different results.
Andy and I had many arguments
over Louis Vola's bass part on "Minor Swing," but we eventually
came to an agreement. Vola uses a lot of minor-sixth runs that complement
Django's solo tonality, adding some effective sliding and slapping during
solo breaks. From the tonality of the rhythm guitars (and from studying
period photos of the Quintet), we reckoned that Joseph Reinhardt was
playing rhythm on a classical Selmer-Maccaferri and that the other rhythm
guitar was a steel-string. Listening carefully to the chord voicings,
we realized that both rhythm players used straight barre chords, with
no added sixth in the minor chords and only a seventh in the E and F
chords, and that they played slightly different turnarounds at the end
of each chorus.
I had done a lot of research
to see just how Django looked in 1936 and had photocopied the best photos
I had of Django's hair, mustache, and hand for the film's hair and makeup
artists. I had already been growing and trimming my mustache to give
it that Gypsy shape, and I had my mustache, eyebrows, and eyelashes
tinted from their normal dirty blond to jet black.
Armed with guitars, books,
photos, CDs, music, and vintage mics, Andy and I flew to Montreal where
Jean picked us up and took us to our hotel, the incredibly lovely Le
St. James near the older section of Montreal. After we checked in, Jean
took us out for some great sushi. We quickly learned to trust his instinct
on food.
The next day we went to Jean's studio, Image Sonore, to start work on
the tracks. Image Sonore is somewhat of a family affair: Jean's daughter,
Ann, is the studio manager and his son, Jean-Sébastien, the engineer.
The studio was well equipped and comfortable, and we immediately got
to the task at hand. Jean and I had the same idea: we'd record the original
cuts of both songs into the computer with Digital Performer so that
we could play along with the originals, keeping the same tempo fluctuations
as on the original performances. Andy and I recorded the rhythm guitars
together on both songs, playing on either side of a Royer stereo ribbon
mic. For "Minor Swing" Andy played his 1932 Selmer classical
and I played my 1982 Ibanez/CSL D-hole 12-fret guitar. On "Blue
Drag" Andy played my Ibanez/CSL and I played my 1942 Selmer 14-fret
oval hole.
Once the rhythm tracks were
laid down, Jean called in Frédéric Alarie to play bass.
Although he had minimal experience with this style, he sounded great
once he got into the groove. The only problem was that he had never
done any slapping. Years ago, while playing bass in a rockabilly band,
I developed a decent slap. So despite Frédéric's valiant
efforts, I ended up playing the slap bass parts on "Minor Swing"
myself. The action on the bass was so low, it was difficult to get up
under the metal strings to pull them, and I was left with blood blisters
on the first two fingers of my right hand! Fortunately the blisters
were not in the same area where I held my pick.
Rhythm and bass parts done,
I started on the lead guitar parts. A vintage RCA ribbon mic works well
with my Selmer guitar to get Django's tone, but it needs a special preamp
for best results. Fortunately Aspen Pittman from Groove Tubes arranged
for his local rep to bring us a Vipre mic preamp, which sounded amazing
with the RCA. We experimented with mic placement and pick choice (settling
on a Wegen Fatone, with the Selmer strung with old Argentine purples)
then started to record. The fast downward chromatic run in "Minor
Swing," which was one of the few licks I was using four fingers
on, gave me some problems until I decided to try it with just two fingers.
It worked great. I guess I should know better than to mess with the
master!
Jean had two violinists
in mind for Stéphane Grappelli's parts, but unfortunately one
of them, Stéphane Allard, was in Atlanta filling in for a violinist
in Cirque du Soleil. Andre Proust, who primarily plays French-Canadian
fiddle music, came and played "Blue Drag" just beautifully.
With a little coaching, he achieved that delicate yet bluesy feel that
Grappelli had. We begged him to play "Minor Swing" too, but
he didn't feel comfortable with the bowing style, so we sadly let him
go after jamming on "St. Anne's Reel."
Jean thought it might be
possible to send Stéphane Allard an MP3 of our rhythm tracks,
have him play his violin to it, and return the part via email. Since
we had only two days to create the rough mixes we would mime to for
the filming, we decided to try it. While Andy and I went to a wardrobe
fitting (the wardrobe department had copied the Quintet's outfits exactly
from a 1938 photo, down to the types of collars, ties, etc.), Sébastien
emailed the files and arranged for Stéphane to record and send
them back. We came back expecting to hear the violin part later that
afternoon, but there was some trouble and nothing had arrived! Undaunted,
Jean set it up to be done again the next day. By now I wasn't sure how
or if it was really going to happen. The filming was only two days away,
so whatever we got from Stéphane was going to have to do.
The violin part did arrive
the next morning, and we arrived at the studio anxious to hear what
Stéphane had done. Something sounded funny, however, so I picked
up my guitar to check the pitch and discovered that it was almost a
full step higher and very fast! Fortunately, it was only a problem with
the sample rate, and we came back from lunch to a violin part in the
right key, at the proper tempo, and musically accurate. Stéphane
had obviously studied his namesake well (he even won the Stéphane
Grappelli Jazz Masters Award at one point).
To preserve the ambience of the original recording, Sébastien
copied the room reverberation and balance as closely as possible. Then
for fun we looked at the overall fidelity of the original on a graphic
program and copied that as well, which gave both tracks a great vintage
sound. We were pretty confident that the producers and director would
like this rough mix, and indeed they were blown away by how close we
got to the original recording.
Finally filming day arrived,
with a very early call for wardrobe and makeup. I sat down for my haircut
in the makeup trailer with Penélope Cruz on one side of me and
Charlize Theron on the other. My wife wasn't too happy to hear that,
but I assured her that I was more excited about playing Django than
meeting the actresses.
Within minutes, the hairstylist had my hair cut and styled almost exactly
like Django's. I moved to the next chair where the makeup artist applied
some gluey stuff that drew up the skin on my left hand as it dried.
She applied this many times in different ways and, after it dried, put
makeup on top. When she was done, my hand looked like it was actually
burned and scarred.
A large wardrobe room was
designated for the extras, dancers, and musicians. Entering it felt
like stepping into the '30s—everyone in vintage clothes and hairstyles.
Andy, who was playing the part of Joseph Reinhardt, and I met the musicians
who were playing the parts of Stéphane Grappelli, Baro Ferret
(guitar), and Roger Grasset (bass). Eric Bernard, who played Grappelli,
had learned the 1937 "Minor Swing" solo, so he had no problem
"finger-syncing" to the track. I had recommended François
Rousseau to the casting director, and I was happy to see that he had
been chosen to play Baro Ferret. François runs Djangomontreal.com,
is very knowledgeable in the style, and plays well, too. The bassist,
who was from Brazil, would've been great on the recording; it's too
bad that we didn't meet until that day.
We were taken to the Lyon
d'Or, a beautiful club built in the 1930s, with period wall sconces,
a mosaic-tiled floor, and a golden curtain behind the small elevated
stage. As we waited downstairs, we taught the arrangements to the other
musicians so the sync would look perfect. Eventually director John Duigan
came down to explain the scene and what he needed from us, which was
basically to mime with a lot of energy to the two songs.
We took our positions onstage for the first setup of the day: close-up
and reaction shots to the sight of Penélope and Charlize dancing
together to the sexy, melancholy music. Then all the dancers, extras,
waiters, etc., were brought in for the overall shots, which, along with
close-ups of the women and their dialogue, took up the rest of the day.
At one point when we were back downstairs, we started jamming on "Dark
Eyes" but had to stop because they could hear it upstairs during
the filming!
Although we were all having
a wonderful time, we were hoping to be done in time to see Biréli
Lagrène play that night at the Spectrum in Montreal. Fortunately
we finished at 8:00 pm, just enough time to hurry back to the hotel,
drop off the guitars, and get to the Spectrum. The 1,500-seat venue
was packed, however, and there was no place to sit, but some of François'
musician friends who were there let us crowd in with them. Having known
Biréli for a number of years, I sent a note backstage to tell
him I would see him after the show—and not to be shocked by my
appearance. After his brilliant performance, I stopped backstage. His
eyes got huge when he saw me! He was excited about the film but a little
freaked out at the sight of my hand (I hadn't had time to wash the makeup
off). We then went to a nearby bar to get some food and drink. What
a perfect way to end a perfect few days.
All this Django activity
inspired me to finish a Gypsy jazz CD I had been working on for a while,
Franco-American Swing (J2/FGM, available through my website
www.johnjorgenson.com),
which includes the two tracks from the film as bonus tracks.
Excerpted from
Acoustic
Guitar magazine, July 2004,
No. 139.
