No European jazz musician has so enchanted the world as Django Reinhardt, the gypsy guitarist whose recordings with Stephane Grappelly and the Hot Club of France have meant 'The Thirties' to several generations of listeners, influencing musicians as far afield as Larry Coryell, Leon Redbone, Eddy Lang, and Charlie Christian.This is the only full-length study of Django ever published in English, an unforgettable portrait of a wild and independent figure who never learned to read or write (friends forged his autographs), exasperated those people who lived by schedules, gambled away a week's salary in a night, but who played guitar like no one before or since.