Every gypsy jazz guitarist knows this video well. It’s 1939. Joseph and the fellas are getting a card game in before the show. Stéphane’s having a cigarette in bed (tsk!). And Django Reinhardt’s lounging on the couch playing just about the most beautiful intro to J’attendrai imaginable.
I used AI upscaling to bump this video up to 1080p. The AI also did a great job of removing noise, and a decent job sharpening up edges. I then used some old-fashioned video editing to enhance the colors. Nothing I could do about the fact that someone forgot to turn on the lights halfway through!
The audio was also processed. The source video was a bit out of sync. I did better, but it was tricky to get right for reasons I’ll get into later. Also amplified the audio, added some EQ, and removed the hiss from the background.
Anyway, I didn’t work miracles, but it’s still way better than any other version of it out there. It’s fun to see the furrow of Django’s brow as he plays his legendary solo.
A few realizations working on this video:
- This video is not, in fact, live. At least not all of it. You can hear a clear splice when Django’s solo begins.
- There’s also a part in the guitar intro that’s impossible to sync with Django’s fingers. My only explanation is that it’s dubbed.
- Joseph Reinhardt’s guitar is very, very beat up!
Is it possible to upscale to 4k?
There’s a bit of diminishing returns past 960p but I may consider it in the future as the algorithms improve and I get a faster machine. I’d also love to do a colorized version
There’s also a part in the guitar intro that’s impossible to sync with Django’s fingers. My only explanation is that it’s dubbed.
Yup, exactly same thing with the Venuti-Lang performance of “Wild Cat” in the 1930 “King of Jazz” Paul Whiteman movie.
I suspect that the audio recording equipment of the day would have been pretty unattractive on screen… plus there was the additional problem of the violin being louder than the guitar which would have meant positioning them with the guitarist basically right on top of the microphone and violinist several feet further back…