Lewis wrote "Django" in 1954 as a tribute to his friend, the Belgian-born jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, who had died the previous year. It begins with a 20-bar theme that was described by Ted Gioia in his book The Jazz Standards as dirge-like and mournful. The entry for "django" in the original edition of the Real Book only contained the chord changes for this theme. It is followed by solo sections in modified Thirty-two-bar AABA form, where the first two A sections contain six bars instead of eight, the eight-bar B section contains a pedal point on the tonic, and the final twelve-bar A section contains a boogie bass motif. The solo sections are separated by interludes in double-time derived from the introductory theme. The composition ends with a full repeat of the introductory section. It was first recorded on December 23, 1954 by the Modern Jazz Quartet, of which Lewis was the pianist and musical director. It appeared on the group's 1955 10-inch album The Modern Jazz Quartet, Vol. 2 and their 1956 12-inch LP Django, as well as being released as a 45 RPM single with part 1 on side A and part 2 on side B. It was one of the Modern Jazz Quartet's signature compositions, with the group's bassist Percy Heath recalling that "If we didn't play 'Django' in a concert, we risked getting stoned. I mean in the thrown-at sense." Miles Davis described "Django" as one of the best compositions ever, and in their book Clawing at the Limits of Cool, Salim Washington and Farah Griffin said "It is almost like a poem in its economy and poignancy. With remarkable restraint and almost no concessions to the extroverted tendencies of jazz, the slow and dirgelike 'Django' sustains an intensity and pathos made all the more beautiful through restraint." It was listed on the NPR 100, the 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century compiled by NPR editors, and was ranked #357 on the Songs of the Century, a list of the top 365 songs of the 20th century compiled by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Notable versions
Apart from the 1954 recording, the Modern Jazz Quartet recorded "Django" on three other studio albums, 1960's Pyramid, 1965's Jazz Dialogue, and 1987's Three Windows. They also released it on the live albumsEuropean Concert, The Complete Last Concert, Reunion at Budokan 1981, ', ', and Dedicated to Connie. Lewis recorded the piece on solo piano on his albums Evolution and Evolution II, and performed it with the Jazztet on The Jazztet and John Lewis, the violinist Svend Asmussen on European Encounter, and with the vocalist Helen Merrill on Django. Lewis and Gunther Schuller arranged the albumThe Modern Jazz Society Presents a Concert of Contemporary Music, on which "Django" appears, and Schuller's 1961 album Jazz Abstractions contains three variations on "Django". Other notable versions include those by:
