Everytime, we listen to Stephane Grappelli, despite sadness in his life..."I had to eat flies to ease my hunger," we hear joy. He was inspired to play jazz after hearing Joe Venuti perform with Paul Whiteman's orchestra. Grappelli co-founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt, and he went on to collaborate with such figures as Yehudi Menuhin, Yo Yo Ma, Paul Simon, McCoy Tyner and Oscar Peterson. | JazzCorner

Incredible rare high-quality footage of Django Reinhardt & Stéphane Grappelli performing in 1939. | The GuitArchive

Django Reinhardt came up with solo and harmonic innovations on the guitar in the 30s and 40s which had a huge impact on modern jazz, blues, country, and rock guitar styles. Together with violinist Stephane Grappelli, Reinhardt came up with a new, European style of jazz, called gypsy jazz, or manouche jazz—by fusing Dixieland, swing jazz, French traditional music, gypsy music, and more. He was the first to pioneer a form of jazz that centered around the guitar, in sharp contrast to American jazz,