Owner content reviewed — 2026-10-19T04:10:13Z by admin. Coverage measures presence, not accuracy. Content review does not certify rights or musical perfection.
See what is here and what is missing
✓ Recording evidence
○ Key & form
○ Chart
✓ History
✓ Playing notes
✓ Practice plan
○ Backing track
✓ Django recording
○ Django solo study aid
✓ Illustration
✓ Sources
✓ Difficulty
Django's Recordings
Django recordings for this tune. Uploader dates and take labels remain source claims; only an evidenced exact association enables a row’s Listen control.
5 historical recording entries · source text preserved
Entry
Year
Recording / session / release evidence
Listen
01
1949
Black Night,"Fremeaux FA 318, Vogue 228E 6010, Vogue 600121, Vogue 668003","25/10/49 - Radio Geneve - Django Reinhardt (elg), Andre Ekyan (as,cl), Francois Vermeille (p), Jean Bouchety (b), Gaston Leonard (d)"
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02
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Black Night,BL204,BGO CD 366,"1950 - Rome - Django Reinhardt (elg), Andre Ekyan (as,cl), Ralph Schecroun (p), Alf Masselier (b), Roger Paraboschi (d)"
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03
1948
Diminishing,Fremeaux FA 316,October 10 1948 - Paris - Jazz Parade - Hubert Rostaing and his Sextette featuring Django Reinhardt. Rostaing (cl); Roby Poitevin (vib); Armand Motta (p); Django Reinhardt (eg); L Gallopain / J-P Sasson (g); L Czabanyck (b); Arthur Motta (d).
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04
1947
Diminushing,OSW 486-1,"Fremeaux FA 315, Jazztime 789103-2, Mosaic MD6-190(6 CD Set).","14/11/47 - Paris - QHCF - Stephane Grappelly (v), Django & Joseph Reinhardt, Eugene Vees (g), Fred Ermelin (b)"
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05
1951
Diminushing Blackness,"Vogue 228E 6010, Vogue LP (NEC Plus Ultra 502008)","10/2/51 - Paris - Django Reinhardt (g), Bernard Hullin (tpt), Hubert Fol (as), Raymond Fol (p), Pierre Michelot (b), Pierre Lemarchand (d)"
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A dash means no video has been associated with this exact historical recording. Tune-level listening resources remain available above.
History & Listening
The reissue booklet identifies Black Night as Django’s composition, previously called Diminishing and later Diminishing Blackness. This guide preserves the existing Black Night archive identity and its rows; related title identities are not merged.
Tune details
Music: Django Reinhardt
Documented in archive: 1949
Original key: Not established
Study level: Intermediate; melody, pulse and arrangement awareness
Melody & head
A focused listening guide for a less familiar title, built from small verifiable phrases.
Deep Purple’s Black Night and generic noir playlists are unrelated and are excluded.
Study the inherited Django recording evidence
A focused listening guide for a less familiar title, built from small verifiable phrases.
Session evidence
Black Night,"Fremeaux FA 318, Vogue 228E 6010, Vogue 600121, Vogue 668003","25/10/49 - Radio Geneve - Django Reinhardt (elg), Andre Ekyan (as,cl), Francois Vermeille (p), Jean Bouchety (b), Gaston Leonard (d)"
Chart & Form
Learn the actual recorded melody before borrowing minor-blues language from the title. Mark phrase endings and bass arrivals in one selected Django performance.
No complete verified chart is supplied. The exercises are listening and practice suggestions, not a substitute score.
No readable chord chart has been added for this title.
Play along
No backing track has been added.
Study Django's Solo
Performed studies, transcriptions, TAB, notation and lessons for studying Django’s solo. Inclusion does not certify note-for-note accuracy.
No Django solo study aid yet. Know a useful resource — or want to record a study of this solo?
Similar tunes
Follow a shared key, a harmonic idea or a familiar form. Keys refer to this site’s chart editions; other recordings may use a different key.
Related chord movement
No sufficiently supported harmonic comparison has been added yet.
Same chart key
No match is established in the current chart metadata.
Same form
No match is established in the current chart metadata.
Behind the illustration
Owner-selected illustration. A lone electric-guitar player is almost swallowed by a huge angular ink-black night shape; one thin amber window and a descending chain of small cream circles trace the winding phrase. Dramatic, sly, and spare, no horror.
Original AI-assisted editorial artwork inspired by the tune; not a documented historical scene.
Original AI-assisted illustration created for Djangopedia
Selected performances by notable Gypsy Jazz players and ensembles. Inclusion is editorial and does not imply an objective popularity ranking.
Notable Gypsy Jazz performances are being curated.
Improvisation
Target notes & voice leading
Learn the actual recorded melody before borrowing minor-blues language from the title. Mark phrase endings and bass arrivals in one selected Django performance.
Sing the destination note before playing the connecting phrase.
Pitch choices
Begin with the named chord tones. Add passing notes only after the melody and cadence are secure.
Transcribe only the opening two bars. Sing them, play them in another register, then check every interval against the recording before extending the passage.
Comping & voicings
Use a soft pulse or bass-and-shell sketch only where the harmony is clear. Leave uncertain changes silent until verified.
Voicing note sets
Use a soft pulse or bass-and-shell sketch only where the harmony is clear. Leave uncertain changes silent until verified.
Keep the accompaniment clear
First establish an even pulse; add rhythmic variation only when the melody leaves space.
Deep Purple’s Black Night and generic noir playlists are unrelated and are excluded.
Practice room
80–120 bpm, then increase gradually
Your assignment
Transcribe only the opening two bars. Sing them, play them in another register, then check every interval against the recording before extending the passage.
Loop these changes
Transcribe only the opening two bars. Sing them, play them in another register, then check every interval against the recording before extending the passage.
Metronome
Count quarter notes first. Then place the click on beats 2 and 4 at half the click rate, keeping the phrase length unchanged.
Transposition
Move one short cadence to a nearby key by naming its chord tones, then return to the chosen study key.
At the session
Confirm the chosen arrangement key; Confirm the complete form. Agree the arrangement, pickup and ending before counting in.
Start together
Count a clear tempo and use the final cadence of the agreed arrangement.
Finish together
Cue the final tonic together; agree any tag before starting.
Deep Purple’s Black Night and generic noir playlists are unrelated and are excluded.
Deep Purple’s Black Night and generic noir playlists are unrelated and are excluded.
Arranging the tune
Solo guitar
Keep the melody uppermost and begin with a single bass note under each harmony. Use a soft pulse or bass-and-shell sketch only where the harmony is clear. Leave uncertain changes silent until verified.
Trio or larger group
Use a soft pulse or bass-and-shell sketch only where the harmony is clear. Leave uncertain changes silent until verified.
Vocal considerations
No vocal arrangement is prescribed; use the instrumental melody as the phrasing reference.
This player guide combines inherited recording evidence and editorial study notes. Musical study notes are editorial suggestions; compare them with the recording.
Source-attributed title, performer and recording context; not a claim that every inherited field is independently verified.
Inherited chart and recording evidence
Original archive evidence retained.
Illustration credit & provenance
Original AI-assisted illustration created for Djangopedia
Original AI-assisted editorial artwork inspired by the tune; not a documented historical scene.
Generated with the native image-generation tool on 2026-10-26; original editorial artwork, not a historical photograph.
Prompt: Use case: stylized-concept. Create one finished original landscape 1536x1024 (3:2) raster illustration for Djangopedia, tune Black Night.
Tune context for interpretation only: The reissue booklet identifies Black Night as Django’s composition, previously called Diminishing and later Diminishing Blackness. This guide preserves the existing Black Night archive identity and its rows; related title identities are not merged.
Scene: A lone electric-guitar player is almost swallowed by a huge angular ink-black night shape; one thin amber window and a descending chain of small cream circles trace the winding phrase. Dramatic, sly, and spare, no horror.
Art direction: Spare 1950s cut-paper serigraph: large flat interlocking ink shapes, a few assured irregular contours, witty geometric reduction and generous ivory negative space. Palette: dark aubergine, sage, ochre and cream. Subtle dry ink and paper texture, controlled print misregistration. Make it an artwork with a memorable singular idea, readable as a thumbnail and rewarding at full size; vary viewpoint and composition.
Constraints: entirely original composition, not a copy of an artist's print. No title, words, notation, logos or watermark. No photorealism, glossy 3D, gradients, airbrushed romantic haze, generic sunset or decorative hearts. If Django appears, swept-back dark hair, pencil moustache and a distinct mature individual face; period clothes, no ethnic stereotypes. Respect plausible instruments and hands, keep key subjects within frame. Use strong flat ink shapes rather than photorealistic rendering.
Research & rights notes
Exact video-to-matrix/take associations are not established. Historical rows remain inherited evidence.
No complete chart is present in the inherited archive. Learn from one verified arrangement and establish its roadmap before a jam.
No chart key is asserted; verify the concert key of the chosen recording or accompaniment.
The original composition/publication year has not been independently established for this guide; recording years are separate evidence.
Publisher documents a same-work relationship with Diminishing / Diminishing Blackness. Distinct archive identities remain separate.
No sufficiently reliable new backing was selected in this bounded search; the gap remains explicit.
No new qualifying notable-performance resource selected in this bounded batch.
No qualifying Django solo-study recreation selected. Other players’ solos and melody lessons do not fill this gap.
