Swing Guitars - Jazz Characters

The creator of a style which combined in one single movement musical influences as disparate as musette waltz, swing and gypsy music and probably the only European who ever managed to create a jazz style so distinctive it's still seen as a model today, Django Reinhardt undoubtedly did more for guitar music than any other musician. He extended its technique in terms of both harmony and rhythm at around the same time as Charlie Christian or even Eddie Lang (another white musician) did so in the United States, but with a much greater impact. The latter, due to his improvisational skills and probably also his association with the violinist Joe Venuti, has sometimes been presented as Django's precursor.