📍Samois-sur-Seine, Seine-et-Marne, France
1951 – 1953“In 1951 I left Paris and settled in Samois-sur-Seine, a quiet village on the banks of the Seine at the edge of the forest of Fontainebleau, about seventy kilometres south of Paris, with my wife, Naguine, and our young son, Babik. I had visited Samois years before and fallen in love with it, and we made our home in a house at 5 rue du Bas-Samois, just a few steps from the river. I was born a Manouche, a Romani traveller, in a caravan in Belgium, and I had spent my life on the road and in the clubs of Paris, so this was the most settled home I ever had. In Samois I could relax away from the noise of Paris. I fished in the Seine, right by my door, and I played billiards, and I painted, more seriously than ever; I even talked with my friend Charles Delaunay about becoming a painter. Of course, I still played my guitar every day, with the two fingers of my left hand that I could use after the caravan fire of my youth, and I still went to Paris to record and play in the clubs, experimenting with bebop and the electric guitar. Musicians came to visit, and we played late into the night by the river. In May 1953 my life ended suddenly in Samois, at forty-three, and I was buried in the village cemetery. Since 1968, Samois has held the Django Reinhardt Festival every year in my memory, and guitarists and Romani families come from all over the world to play gypsy jazz on the island in the river. In 2010 a bronze statue of me was unveiled in the village, and my grandson David plays my music there still.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today