Relaxin' at Camarillo

Gypsy Jazz Sundays

Still feeling woozy, so best to look away:

1. Tons of free mp3's of old French jazz 45's - thanks, Guillaume!
2. Contrary to appearances, the programme for the 2007 Samois festival is up (click "programm").
3. Speaking of sick, Andreas Oberg is sick:

Gypsy Jazz Sundays

Enjoy the music while you surf Michael Dunn's gorgeous new website.

Gypsy Jazz Sundays

Tchavolo Schmitt, Dorado Schmitt, and Stochelo Rosenberg, "J'attendrai."

Gypsy Jazz Sundays

Django Reinhardt writes:

"Aussitôt que j'ai entendu parler de Massif Central je ne pourrais pas le croire... J'ai été si choqué, je suis allé directement hors sur une cinq frénésie de jour. Maintenant je me sens terrible.

Les excuses pour mon français. Je suis en fait belge. Et illettré."

Gypsy Jazz Sundays

I've been learning Django's solo to "Douce Ambience" on and off for about eighteen months. I learn it, we play it in the band, then we have one of our extended breaks, then I forget it and have to relearn it all over again. I just re-learnt yesterday for practice on Tuesday. It's the only recorded solo I've ever bothered to learn all the way through, and I did because playing anything other than Django lines over Hotclub tunes sounds rubbish unless you happen to be a genius bebop innovator or possess the wanker chops of Joe Pass. It's an exemplary study in making melodic improvisations out of simple triads. It's also a sort-of blues. I play it at 180bpm, rather than the 240 or whatever QHCF play it at, and there are more than a few mistakes, as well 6-beat superfast chromatic triplet descent that I don't even pretend to play. Otherwise, blah, blah, blah, etc. Douce Ambience. You can find links to gypsy jazz transcriptions here.

After that little treat, your thoughts will have probably turned to your summer holidays. We're having a week on the Bristol Channel (tres miserable, mon braves), but I suggest you get yourself off to the annual Gypsy-Jazz Festival near Django's resting place in the French town of Samois-sur-Seine. Here's a nice Django travelogue to get you in the mood. Be sure to send a postcard.

Gypsy Jazz Sundays

 

Django's Paintings: I totally nicked these off the Hotclub.co.uk forum, but aren't they great? They look remarkably similar to the Anthony Aloisius St. John Hancock masterpieces in The Rebel (1961), one of the greastest movies ever made.

Gypsy Jazz Sundays

A vast amount of free play-along tracks are available on Stephane Wremble's recently re-designed website: http://www.stephanewrembel.com/

A couple of nights in with these and you'll have wanker chops in no time. Soon you'll be ready to take it to the next level, so if you think you can handle being daily humiliated by killer six year-olds too little to see over the bodies of their Duponts, you should seriously consider going to Gypsy Jazz school. As oxymoronic as it sounds, longstanding educator and outstanding gypsy jazzer, Romane (he of the insanely-translated Espirits Manouche), has set up an itinerant program in gypsy jazz that takes place in several different locations around France. What's more, he's teaching it in the oral tradition and you know what that means -- no exams! However, some aspects of conventional education will be preserved, eg. none of the hot girls will like you and you'll get a wedgie on the first day of term. If you're especially promising, Romane will do it himself.

(Thanks to Lee at http://thejazzguitarist.blogspot.com/ who first posted this video. The little one is Jimmy Rosenberg, the prodigious talent who subsequently went on to become the Pete Doherty of swing).

Gypsy Jazz Sundays

Someone has started a gypsy jazz videos group at YouTube.

 

(And find these and other rare and fantastic archival images kindly posted by Papi at www.Hotclub.co.uk.)

Gypsy Jazz Sundays

It's been a beautiful day over here and I just really enjoyed sitting around at home, so decided to rustle up a hasty one-take rendition of Django's "Manoir de Mes Reves" in honour of the simple things. I recorded my own accompaniment, but having seen that these inestimably superb hommes had done it so much better, thought why not rope them in? Manoir de mes Reves

Here's a nice selection of Django transcriptions, video, audio, links and lots more from Dennis C., a fantastic player based in Montreal.

Oh...and by the way -- I found the Cocobolo pick under the sofa, and it's not too small, it's just right, a rock-hard piece of smooth brown wood with a round, slightly muted sound.

Gypsy Jazz Sundays

Let's all learn to play like Manouche. Here's what you'll need:

1. A Selmer Maccaferri guitar.

2. This page of free gypsy jazz lessons including audio and video, coming at you live and direct from swinging Luxembourg.

3. From la bella Roma, a cool page of transcriptions, charts and tunes.

4. From that France, "grilles," transcriptions, and a francophone forum.

5. Hotclub radio.

You'll also be requiring a shed, an iron grip, and a lot of spare time. Bon chance!