An encyclopedia of biographical and discographical information on Belgian-born French guitarist Django Reinhardt (1910-1953) is available in print and online, so I'm not going to repeat much of it here. Suffice it to say that Reinhardt is generally regarded as one of the greatest guitarists in jazz history and was among the first European jazz artists to have a major influence on the genre.
Reinhardt waxed the Latin standard Brazil three times between 1947 and 1953. The first version was among eight titles recorded on July 18, 1947, in Paris. The session featured Hubert Rostaing, clarinet; Emmanuel Soudieux, double bass; Andre Jourdan, drums; and Eugene Vees, rhythm guitar. Brazil was issued on a 78 rpm disc on the Blue Star label.
Although Joseph Reinhardt is listed on the label as the rhythm guitarist on Brazil most discographies and reissue CDs credit Eugene Vees.
Brazil
Like most of Django Reinhardt's recordings the 1947 session that generated Brazil has been repackaged numerous times on CD and via downloads. The easiest, and cheapest, to find is the album Django's Blues (Gitanas Jazz Productions, France, 2001), which also contains tracks from a second 1947 session on Oct. 4.
This is available via CD or download from all the major sources. I'd opt for the CD as it's really cheap.
For comparison here's the recording of Brazil made by Reinhardt on March, 10, 1953, with pianist Maurice Vander, bassist Pierre Michelot and drummer Jean-Louis Viale.
Footnote: The original title of Brazil, written in 1939 by Ary Barroso, was Aquarela do Brasil (Watercolor of Brazil). But it's commonly referred to in the English-speaking world as Brazil because of the numerous popular recordings (Xavier Cugat, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Dorsey, etc.) that used the shortened title.
Life-saver, this was! Spent days trying to track down the provenance of a version with clarinet ~ till I found this!
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