Joseph "Nin-Nin" Reinhardt (born March 1st 1912, †February 7th 1982), was the younger brother of Django Reinhardt.If one really was born "in the shade of his brother" that applies to Joseph Reinhardt. Although even a great composer, guitarist and musician himself, he stood all of his life in the shade of his big famous brother Django Reinhardt.
From the very beginning Joseph always stood aside next to his brother Django and accompanied him as a rhythm guitarist in the cafes and on "Bals musettes" and was very soon engaged by Louis Volas "Palm Beach Orchestra" in Cannes.
Already in 1933 he was known in Paris pretty much amongst the parisian (Jazz-)musicians and played in different "Hotjazz"-formations. Often Joseph also stepped in for his brother, if Django once again simply did not appear to a gig or engagement (which happened pretty often!), and then took over his part (see also Django - the guitar Maestro).
From 1934 he was a lasting member of the "Quintette du Hot Club de France" at the side of his brother Django until about early 1940ies. Another job next to his brother Django was beeing his "guitar-carrier" and "taking-care-of-strings" for his brother, until in 1943 he finally had enough from his escapades and thus separated from him during arguments at least for some time. He used to come back in whenever it was nessesary or he´s been asked to, but he never came back for good to the Quintette.
Around 1943/44 Joseph started on his own ways and first worked with the "Aimé Barelli Big-Band" or Alex Combelle´s "Jazz de Paris" and made his first solo-records also with other bands (among other things) recording together with Gus Viseur "Swing 42", Hubert Rostaing "L'oeil Noir" and again Alex Combelle "If I had You".
In 1944 he finally founded his own Recording-band with Violinist Claude Laurence (alias Andre Hodeir). Stephane Grapelli after he had split up with Django in 1943 engaged Joseph in 1947 into his Group "Hot Four" where he played electric-guitar.
After the death of his brother Django in 1953 Joseph stopped to play music completely until around 1957, where he tried to complete Django's unfinished holy Mass "Gitane", but he would never finished it.
In 1958 he was engaged for the documentation about his brother "Django Reinhardt", where he had a short appearance in the later resulted short-film "Paris Blues" (1961). At this time he had put together his own Quitett and recorded two Solo-LP's with it.
In the 1960ies Joseph was rather active again, he recorded some records with his own Quintette and accompanied Dingo Adel in the "Blue Jazz Museum" and Jacques Montagene "Live in Paris 1966" for the Hotclub-Records. He appeared in Paris for some concerts with them, played at some night clubs in Paris and once played there even also with with Babik Reinhardt, Django´s second son.
Also he played and recorded some records together with Diz Disley in England. In 1970 finally he appeared as one of the first artists at the Django Reinhardt Festival in Samois/France.
Joseph "Nin-Nin" Reinhardt died on February 24th 1982 and was buried next to his brother Django on the graveyard of Samois.
Even if Joseph has been a very respected musician himself who composed, recored and played with many known Jazz-musicians he could never step out of the big shadow of his older brother.
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