This introduction to mid-period, postwar
Django Reinhardt features the jazz guitarist on electric guitar with clarinetist
Gerard Leveque, rhythm guitarist
Eugene Vees, bassist
Emmanuel Soudieux, and drummer
André Jourdan for the first seven tracks, then switches to a reunion set featuring
Reinhardt with his old partner, violinist
Stéphane Grappelli, for four cuts before presenting a 1949 reunion of
Reinhardt and
Grappelli backed by a piano/bass/drums rhythm section. The resulting album is certainly pleasant, but it clearly doesn't make the perfect introduction to
Reinhardt, whose key playing with
Grappelli took place a decade earlier. Still, things swing nicely here on tracks like "It Had to Be You," "Swing Guitar," the intriguing and haunting "Minor Blues," and "Swing 39." Good, but not essential.