Gypsy Jazz Guitar
The start of any Gypsy Jazz page must start with Django Reinhardt. He like Segovia for classic guitar, spawned many musical offspring.And his legacy continues today.
His son Babik was a gifted composer and fine guitarist who died too young, but tried to carry on the remembrance of his father, while trying to forge his own style.
His composition "All Love" is one of the most expressive renderings of a piece of guitar music that I have ever heard. Django's music has influenced guitarists around the whole world. From Les Paul to Joe Pass, and countless others myself included.
One of the new generation of guitarists that has captured to a strong degree the heart of Django Reinhardt's style is Biréli Lagrène
My first clue to Django was the album that Joe Pass recorded "For Django", which begs the question who was Django?
I had been following Biréli's career after I heard a CD of his when he was only 15. Earlier than that I had heard Boulou Ferré in his debut album, again at a very early age. I was impressed at how mature and accomplished they were at so young an age. What was it about the Gypsy culture that nurtured this kind of talent so soon?
As as teacher for over 30 years, I was eager to learn the secret of launching children into the joy of the guitar at an early age. In my research I did find several factors that I think contributed to their uncommon success in this nurturing of talent in the gypsy culture. But I digress.
Biréli finally came within hearing distance of my neck of the woods in Northern California at a venue called Yoshi's in March 2003 The top jazz venue in the San Francisco Bay Area. Biréli was kind and generous to a fellow guitarist and invited me to his concerts dates as his guest. It was like a long drink of inspiration for me, and kindled the fires of my musical imagination again. There was much here that I could relate to. You see my background and time spent on the guitar was, after my formative years, classical guitar, and here was Biréli exhibiting some of the same values I like in classical music, great tone and expression, the virtuoso arpeggios of a great violinist, the dialog between him and Florin Niculescu his violinist on the tour. It was quite captivating.
His last performance in the Bay area was in Santa Cruz on Monday, March 10th. Biréli was going to come over to my house and visit my guitar repair man Dave Tupper, as his guitar was buzzing and needed some work, but alas the commute during rush hour over the mountain was a worry, so it was decided to just head out for Santa Cruz.
The concert there was a order of magnitude more brilliant than at Yoshi's.
I have no idea why, but the audience was primed and ready to hear Biréli, and were very enthusiastic. There was an incredible dialog between Biréli and Florin on the violin. They really knew how to build a solo
Later that evening, I got a chance to jam with Biréli, and it was very exciting to watch this guy up close. It was, as I reminisced about it to Paul Mehling who was there, like Joe Pass trying to keep up with Oscar Peterson, but we were not Joe Pass! . . . so while we both got our butts kicked, it felt good afterwards. ;-)
Now someone was there with a video camera. I gave him my card. I hope he calls me because I want to see that again because I'm sure I was in an altered state. I was high on the music!
I did wake up with a sore throat though. Those guys smoke those cancer sticks. If he weren't such a smoking player too, I would not have hung around, but what can you do? When in France. . .
Some Gypsy Jazz Links:
http://django.samois.free.fr - Samois sur Seine Festival site
Django Swing Page
The Django Reinhardt Filmography
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