FESTIVAL/CRUISE: Django Reinhardt Festival: Hot Club Music

Django Reinhardt was born in 1910 to a family of French Gypsies. He taught himself guitar before he could read or write, but then he nearly lost his life (and badly hurt his hand) as a young man by accidentally lighting a fire with a candle. Reinhardt tirelessly rehabilitated his injured hand and taught himself to fret the guitar with two fingers. His clear, emphatic guitar — inspired in part by Armstrong and Ellington — swept the continent in the 1930s...

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