Django Reinhardt (1910-1953) was a Belgian-born Romani guitarist, one of the most original and influential jazz musicians in Europe. With Stéphane Grappelli, he helped create the distinctive sound of the Quintette du Hot Club de France.

In the Pristine catalogue he appears with Jean Sablon in recordings from the 1930s, a setting that catches his guitar within the wider French popular and jazz world.

Reinhardt’s playing was rhythmically alive, harmonically inventive and dazzlingly fluent, all the more astonishing given the injury that limited the use of two fingers on his left hand.

His influence on jazz guitar is beyond calculation. Django made the instrument flash, sing and dance with a cigarette burn in its halo.