To confirm my earlier post,

After a quick spot of reading, it appears that Django actually learned Jazz with Coleman Hawkins as an accompanist.

It was in this capacity and from this foundation that he learned the harmonic movement stuff that allowed him to develop as a jazz soloist.

This confirms my earlier comments.

Roma have a wonderful, rich and highly developed musical culture. Their music does not move between key centres in the way that Jazz does though, and Django would have found the sounds associated with that both elusive and fascinating.

As an accompanist in a Jazz band he would most certainly have had to play from a chart, as a jazz guitarosts bread and butter has been, from the very beginning, to chop out the chords at short notice.

Even if he didn't sight read, his knowledge of voice leading, an absolute must for the jazz accompanist, shows that he had a clear understanding of written music.

hose bands did not sit around like we might and play each other songs a hundred times till they had all learned it, they just got up and played.

To do this, you need to have twpo things - a great ear and a great understanding of Jazz theory.

Thats why Jazz is hard.