Django Reinhardt

Jean 'Django' Reinhardt was a pioneering Romani-French jazz guitarist and composer who invented a completely original musical genre: Gypsy jazz (jazz manouche). Raised in a Romani encampment outside Paris, Reinhardt suffered horrific burns in a caravan fire at age 18, which permanently paralyzed the fourth and fifth fingers of his left hand.

Undaunted, Reinhardt developed an extraordinary two-fingered fretting technique of dazzling speed and harmonic ingenuity. In 1934, he co-founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with violinist Stéphane Grappelli, creating the first all-acoustic, European-born jazz style. Standards he composed, such as 'Minor Swing', 'Nuages', and 'Djangology', remain revered worldwide.