Django Reinhardt

Testament to this is a square being named in his honour in Paris, close to the Gypsy camp where he was raised, and the first Django Reinhardt International Gypsy Swing Guitar Festival being launched at Battersea's Quecum bar.

Now acknowledged as one of the most influential pre-rock'n'roll guitarists, his skill for inventive improvisation has seen him name-checked by everyone from BB King, Robert Fripp and Willie Nelson to The Libertines.

His legacy is all the more remarkable because after he was badly injured in a fire at the age of 18, doctors thought he would never play the instrument again.

Having played professionally at bal-musette halls in Paris from an early age, he had to relearn the guitar using his now partially paralysed third and fourth fingers for chords and his index and middle digits for soloing.

During his recovery he was introduced to US jazz and when he resumed work he got to record with Louis Armstrong and Coleman Hawkins, among others.

His reputation was sealed in 1934 when he formed the Quintette du Hot Club de France with long-standing musical partner and violinist Stephane Grappelli.

They became one of the few renowned jazz outfits comprised only of string instruments and they have been credited with developing the concept of lead and rhythm guitar.

The quintet quickly became one of the highest paid in Europe and they were on tour in England when the second world war was declared.

Leaving Grappelli behind, Reinhardt immediately returned to Paris where he survived the fate of many Gypsies having apparently enjoyed the protection of jazz-loving Luftwaffe official Dietrich Schulz-Kohn.

He was reunited with Grappelli at the end of the war and then went on a US tour in autumn 1946, supporting Duke Ellington.

But his performances, for which he switched to an electric guitar rather than his usual acoustic Selmer-Maccaferri, were not well received.

Critics complained that his playing was frantic and jagged.

The experience affected him badly and upon his return to France he reimmersed himself in his old nomadic lifestyle.

He continued to play and record music and, despite increasingly erratic behaviour, he did eventually get used to the electric guitar.

His final recordings, captured on Nuages, show him starting to develop a new swing form that incorporated bebop.

How this assimilation would have continued will never be known, for he died of a brain haemorrhage at the age of 43.

His fears that he might be forgotten have proven to be unfounded and in the years since his death his music has been used on the soundtracks of The Matrix and Chocolat and his life provided the backdrop for Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown.

And a minor planet - 94291 Django - has been named after him.

But most importantly support at the grass-roots level in terms of homegrown festivals suggests that his legacy may well continue until his 200th anniversary.