Minor Swing is an instrumental composed by Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli, written in A minor. It is a classic of gypsy jazz, also called jazz manouche, and of swing. According to a legend, the two men came to the tune while tuning their instruments. It was first recorded on 25 November 1937 in Paris by the Quintette du Hot Club de France, with Reinhardt on solo guitar, Grappelli on violin, Joseph Reinhardt and Eugène Vées on rhythm guitars, and Louis Vola on double bass. Issued as a single on the Swing label, the record was produced by Charles Delaunay.
The original recording opens with a 16-bar introduction and closes with a 16-bar AA theme. The improvisation grid is 16 bars in AB form over three chords, Am, Dm and E7, and the tune is a jam-session favourite and one of the first standards of jazz manouche. Wynton Marsalis called it an essential jazz recording. Reinhardt returned to the tune in later recordings, in 1947, 1948, 1949 with Grappelli, and 1950. Later versions include those by Sacha Distel and Claude Bolling (1962), Babik Reinhardt (1974), Stéphane Grappelli with Philip Catherine, Larry Coryell and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (1979), Biréli Lagrène, the Rosenberg Trio, Didier Lockwood, Kazumi Watanabe, Angelo Debarre and Tchavolo Schmitt. It is regarded as one of Reinhardt's signature works and a swing-era jazz standard.
