Nuages (French for "Clouds") is an instrumental jazz composition written by Django Reinhardt in 1940 for the Quintette du Hot Club de France. One of his best-known works, it is a jazz standard and a mainstay of the gypsy swing repertoire. It has an ABAC form in 4/4 time, usually in F or G major, and its harmony alternates minor and major, opening on a diminished sixth before an ambiguous II-V-I. The recording that made it famous was made in Paris on 13 December 1940, with two clarinets, Alix Combelle and Hubert Rostaing, Django and Joseph Reinhardt on guitars, Tony Rovira on bass and Pierre Fouad on drums. Issued on the French Swing label, it was adopted by the Pleyel audience in February 1941 during the Occupation and was reportedly the most played tune of that period. The critic Ted Gioia has called it an alternative anthem of the French Resistance. Reinhardt later recorded it with Stéphane Grappelli in 1946, and Peggy Lee, Paul Desmond and Manhattan Transfer are among its later interpreters.
