Django Reinhardt At the Movies

UK collection. No Jazz Musician can surely ever have expressed themselves more eloquently than Django Reinhardt. The nuances and breathtaking sophistications of his playing style have obvious cinematic potential and Woody Allen and Louis Malle are among the directors who have made use of his music in their films. Stardust Memories was released at the height of Woody Allen's popularity, a controversial film made in the wake of Annie Hall and Manhattan, the triumphs that brought the director global recognition. Django's music is central in a historic Jazz score. Woody has described Stardust Memories as "The best film I ever did... The closest I've come to achieving what I set out to achieve. " Two decades later Woody Allen would pay tribute to the Jazz guitar with Sweet and Lowdown, a re-working of a project entitled Jazz Baby that he had written, and shelved, thirty years earlier. Our edition features the three Django recordings used in the film combined with the Django readings of compositions performed in the movie, "in period style" by Howard Alden.