Mesdames et Messieurs, I'd like to welcome you to a journey into the past.

1. Intro:

Paris in the 1930s. A Golden Age.

The sound of swing was just crossing over from America. A flood of famous American musicians,
Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, Paul Whitemen, George Gershwin, and Coleman Hawkins were
touring Paris, and could be heard playing in cafes and concert halls.

The local French musicians were struggling to compete with this flood of American talent. Two local
Parisians -Django Reinhardt, an illiterate gypsy guitarist with only two functional fingers on his left
hand, and violinist Stephane Grappelli, who grew up in orphanages and learnt his craft on the streets
of Paris, discovered a mutual passion for these new sounds from across the Atlantic. Together they
formed a quintette that would be celebrated for decades to come - the quintette of the Hot Club of
France.

➡️ Minor swing (1937) Django Reinhardt & Stéphane Grappelli m hot club de France

1. That was Minor Swing, a tune written by the guitarist, Django Reinhardt in 1937. Paris in the
1930s saw an explosion of the arts, music and literature. The song has become one of the
most iconic Django tunes of the 30s, and was used in the soundtrack of the popular French
Film, Chocolat. Our next song, Coquette embodies the carefree sensibility of the Roaring
Twenties and the interwar period. Stephane Grappelli said that jazz and swing made him
happy. “When I’m playing I’m blissful, I’m happy, I improvise.”

➡️ Coquette (1928) (Flirt)

(First half of solo mom

Second half of solo Fran )

1. In 1936, upstart impresario, Lew Grade introduced the Hot Club to a young singer by the
name of Beryl Davis. She was merely 12 years old at the time and arrived in Paris complete
with a chaperone. Despite her age, she could sing songs of love and heartbreak as if she had
lived through them herself. The Hot Club toured and recorded with Davis on-and-off for
three years until a week before the Second World War broke out.

➡️ Undecided (1939) Music - Charlie Shavers, Lyrics - Sid Robin

1. Django Reinhardt had a penchant for being late, or not arriving at all for performances, like
that one time in New York, at Carnegie Hall, where he forgot to arrive at the gig with Duke
Ellington and was found chatting to a French boxing champion in a bar. Stéphane Grappelli
especially dreaded spring time, because Django would disappear as soon as the sun was out,
 and pretty ladies were walking about. This song, recorded by the hot club in 1946, is a
welcoming of Spring time. It's title, cou cou, is informal for hello in French.

➡️ CouCou (date unknown) - Written by Jean Féline (lyrics) & A. Mathas (music)

1. The next song has become a popular gypsy standard. It is called “dream of autumn”/song
d’automne.

Harold Bride, an wireless operator on the Titanic, which sank in 1912, recalled the following in an
interview with the New York Times:, ”The ship was gradually turning on her nose, just like the duck
does that goes down for a dive. I had only one thing on my mind - to get away from the suction. The
band was still playing. I guess all of the band went down. They were playing Autumn then".

”The way the band kept playing was a noble thing. I heard it first when still we were working
wireless, when there was a ragtime tune for us, and the last I saw the band when I was floating out
in the sea with my life belt on, it was still on deck playing "autumn". How they ever did it I cannot
imagine.

➡️ Songe D’Automne (1908) - Written by Archibald Joyce

1. A well-loved Neighbourgood on a hillside overlooking Paris has set the scene for many films,
songs and award-winning literature. Prior to 1860, Menilmontant lay beyond the capitol's
tax border, so that wine was cheaper there, leading to much merrymaking at local drinking
establishments known as guinguettes. This next song was released by the prolific French
singer and songwriter, Charles Trenet in 1938, a year before he was called up to serve in the
French army. Trenet would go on to write over a 1000 songs in his lifetime. He refused to
sing anybody else's songs.

➡️ Menilmontant (1938) - Charles Trenet

1. I would like to take this moment to introduce the band- on lead guitar - Kevin Drummond,
on Accordion, Theodora Drummond, on rhythm guitar and violin, Frances van der Walt. This
next song by Edith needs no introduction.

➡️ Sous le Ciel de Paris -

1. The Quintette of the Hot Club of France were initially signed to the record label, Ultraphone,
and at one of their recording sessions, the recording engineer asked why the band had
“changed” the music from the version they had played on the wax tests. The band’s
improvisation had been such, that he did not realise they were merely different takes of the
same song. After Ultraphone’s exclusive contract with the band ended, the large British
Decca label, jumped on the bandwagon. The quintet recorded this next tune at the Decca
Studios in London in 1938, titled, Stompin’ at Decca.
➔ Stompin’ at Decca (1938) – Django Reinhardt

1. It's a little known fact that the man who invented crooning, the man who taught Bing Crosby
how to sing, and in Britain is known as the very first pop star, was raised in Johannesburg. Al
Bowlly was the first singer to use the new technology of a microphone and ampification to
project his voice and personality. As the most famous singer of the 20s and 30s, Bowlly
wrote a book on crooning, titled "the modern style of singing". In his lifetime, Al Bowlly,
made more than a 1000 records. He even sang and recorded in Afrikaans (kleine maat, the
prisoner's song, and more are still available today). Tragically, during the war, he was killed
when a Luftwaffe parachute mine detonated outside his London flat. He was only 42. This
song was recorded by Al Bowlly in 1935 and Django Reinhardt recorded it in 1938.

➡️ My Melancholy Baby (1912) - Music by Ernie Burnett, Lyrics by George A. Norton

1. During the German occupation in Paris, Django Reinhardt was granted permission to
perform in public, but before each concert, he had to submit his song selections to the
official censorship bureau, the “Propogandastaffel”. During this time, Reinhardt wrote a
song that was to become a secret anthem of the French resistance and has remained one of
his most famous tunes. The melody seemed to come to Django out of thin air, as his amazed
band mates remembered. He called it Nuages - clouds.

➡️ Nuages (1940) - Django Reinhardt

• Kevin first half of the solo, Mom second half of the solo

1. During the bitter times of the war, The Andrews Sisters devoted their energy to entertaining
the troops of the allied forces, spreading some sweetness and relief wherever they went.
This next song, Originally a Yiddish folk song, became a worldwide hit when the Andrews
sisters sang it in 1937. It earned them the first ever Gold Record awarded to a female vocal
group and was used as the theme song for the 1938 film Love, Honour and behave.

➡️ Bei Mir Bist du Schoen (1932) - Sholom Secunda, lyrics by Jacob Jacobs

1. What is left of our love, what is left of those beautiful days, nothing but a photo, an old
photo of my youth. This deep sense of loss and nostalgia was expressed in song form by
Charles Trenet in the height of the chaos and devastation of the Second World War. Some of
you may be more familiar with the English version of his song - "I wish you love".

➡️ Que reste t'il de nos amours - (1942) by Charles Trenet

 1. As the war came to an end, with countless dreams shattered, loved ones lost, and an
overwhelming feeling of emptiness prevailing, Edith Piaf wrote a love song that would touch
the hearts of anyone who cared to listen. At the time, she did not receive any songwriting
credits, due to her supposed "lack of songwriting qualifications". Undeterred by this, the
success of the song led her to write more than 80 songs thereafter, establishing her as one
of the most-loved French icons of the 20th century.

➡️ La via en rose (1945/6) - Edith Piaf

THE END