Django x Pêche à la Mouche

There are some musics, some melodies and some players that get stuck in one’s mind and help to define a moment or experience. Hopefully, only the most adept players get around to being part of a memory, although, that’s surely not the case. There’re myriad punk bands stuck in my head that have to do with a specific part of my life. But easily the most enduring music tied to a series of memories is Django Reinhardt. He’s generally lauded for his skill and the time in which he sat in on jazz history making the guitar a featured instrument as opposed to simply something rhythmic. It’s probably true. But that doesn’t mean that he’s some museum piece. And I would venture to say that as many folks listen to him now as way back when, during his heyday. That’s only due to the way in which music is shared and transmitted at this point, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad.

Anyway, as I attempted to work on some melodic, single line solos a ways back, Django seemed the best guy to play along to – and if that seems weird to you, dear reader, than you don’t play music at all. What resulted, though, was my unerring affection for not just the guitarist, but a specific song. “Pêche à la Mouche” possesses one of the most striking, yet uncluttered melodic lines from Django’s mountainous discography. It wouldn’t be fair – or possible – for me to figure that it’s his ‘best song,’ whatever that actually means. But it does beckon to a specific time for me.

During the early aughties, a roommate and I basically owned or possessed for a time the instruments for a full band to show up and begin performing in our living room. It resulted in many late evenings and even a few crowds congregating below our window, which looked out onto a shopping district on the near east side of Cleveland. We received some applause and even a cop’s flashlight disturbing us, but that’s to be expected.

More recently, a female acquaintance told me something to the affect of, “You have the best chill out music, ever.” And regardless of what ‘chill out music’ is this comment came only after listening to a bit of Django. Just last month, another conquest professed her infatuation with Django, which both surprised and exhilarated me. So now Django has been apart of three disparate portions of my life, helping to musically define each. It seems too odd to be fact, but it is. The strength of just that one melody from “Pêche à la Mouche,” its playfulness and buoyancy will hopefully sustain further encounters like these aforementioned times, but who knows.

The future can’t be figured on a melody, but the fact that this musical idea has made it into the century following its recording speaks volumes about the man who composed it. There are more technically difficult things out there, but none of them seems to have a voice as distinct as Django and this one composition.