Django is a 1954 jazz standard composed by John Lewis as a tribute to the Belgian gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt, who had died in 1953. It became a signature piece for the Modern Jazz Quartet, with Lewis as pianist and musical director. The tune is an instrumental in the jazz genre, first recorded on December 23, 1954 and released on The Modern Jazz Quartet, Vol. 2 in 1955 and on Django in 1956. It opens with a somber 20-bar theme and then moves into solo sections arranged in a modified Thirty-two-bar AABA form where the first two A parts are six bars, the B part is eight bars with a pedal on the tonic, and the final A part is twelve bars with a boogie bass, with interludes in double-time between solos. The piece is admired for its blend of classical lyricism and jazz, its melancholic mood, and its precise form; Miles Davis praised it as one of the best compositions ever and NPR later placed it on its NPR 100 list of important American music. It has been covered by many artists, including Bill Evans, Vince Guaraldi, and Stéphane Grappelli, cementing Django as one of the great jazz standards.
