Django Reinhardt was born in 1910 in Liberchies, Belgium. He was born into the open air, because of the rambling lifestyle of his gypsy parents. He didn’t live in a real house until he turned twenty years old. These French Gypsies or Manouches were a world unto themselves, medieval in their beliefs, and distrustful of modern science. Django grew up in this world of contradictions, one foot in the bustling big city of Paris and the other in the age-old life of the nomadic gypsy. Though born into poverty Django had the soul of a nobleman and this natural elegance of bearing and attitude expressed itself in his music.

Young Django manifested interest in music at the age of eight...