electro swing // gypsy django party If you can judge a group by its influences, try these out: Django Reinhardt, Vitalic, Cab Calloway, Justice, Lionel Hampton, Daft Punk, Billy Holiday. The Paris-based group has been touring since they broke out at the Django Reinhardt Jazz Festival in 2007. They deliver an old gypsy swing, but through [...]
The liner notes imply that this is the Christmas album {{Django Reinhardt=10635}} and {{Stephane Grappelli = 7175}} might have made, had they made one. Certainly the The Hot Club of San Francisco is a virtuosic group that specializes in conjuring that era (see their masterful Bohemian Maestro for a recent example). But there's a wealth of delicious humor here that goes beyond anything that legendary...
Woody Allen is a strange phenomenon. I've seen close to thirty of his movies, and still I have fun watching another one. This time, Sean Penn is Emmet Ray, a jazz guitarist that is considered the second best guitarist in the world - only being overshadowed by Django Reinardt. Sadly, being second best feels like a curse for him - he likes to brag, but can't say how good he is without mentioning Django....
Lylas - Do You Believe In Blood? Lylas has always been a band for all seasons. They've recorded spring songs, summer songs, and two EPs full of Christmas songs. But perhaps the time of year their music is most appropriate for is Halloween. Even when they aren't name dropping the October holiday in their songs (something they do twice on their new album), their music has long been full of themes appropriate...
Django Reinhardt's grandson David Reinhardt (above) will be just 23 when he opens a centenary festival at the Quecumbar in Battersea on January 17th 2010 . The first tickets are going on sale on SUNDAY. More programme details on the Quecumbar's website here , and we'll have more to say, with a Gallic shrug... quand cela nous plaira.
Salvatore Russo's La Touche Manouche is his 2009 acoustic guitar CD done in the Gypsy Jazz style associated with guitarists such as Django Reinhardt, and features the guitar work of Stochelo Rosenberg in all tracks. Russo comments, "Only a few years ago I would have never imagined recording this CD with Stochelo Rosenberg. His touch, his taste, his sound and his elegance are those of one of the...
Dreyfus Jazz celebrates the 100th Birthday of one of the most influential guitarists--Django Reinhardt--with an expansive series of new albums by today's jazz guitar masters. The French jazz label unveils new recordings by Bireli Lagrene, Dorado Schmitt and Family, Luis Salinas, Sylvain Luc, Philip Catherine, and new signing Rocky Gresset...
It has been HOT in southern California, and has been so for days and days. Early Autumn always seems more roasty and toasty than late Summer around here. Just to make us crazy, this year's October heat has been intermixed...
Our blogeration today concerns just one tune, which is fairly well known among record folks as Chicken by the Spark Plugs. It was re-issued a few year back on Norton (with the Condas' The Bird as the b-side, a tune that had never been released until the aforementioned Norton 45, it came to me via a listener to my old WFMU radio show who sent me a cassette of his dad's band which consisted of two songs...
Tune: My Favorite Things by John Coltrane brussels sprouts tajines cooked in tajines hard knock radio jj on the radio Cover to Cover with Jennifer Stone grinders grooveyard slim and slam old school hip hop new hip hop that doesn't suck brown butter phirni homemade ice cream sandwich Django Reinhardt old records old radios old record players hand made tortillas old cufflinks figs persimmons slow braised...
"Ar" wants to know who they are. When I was young I studied guitar for seven years (multiple styles), so it's an area I've long had an interest in. I was never very good but I learned a lot about...
Guignol and Mischief Brew have released a collaboration titled Fight Dirty . The record features seven songs by Mischief Brew's Erik Fistolo backed by Guignol, six Guignol songs with Erik on guitar, a Django Reinhardt cover, and a cover of Iron Maiden's "Hallowed Be Thy Name" with Slavic Soul Party's Ben Holmes on trumpet. The bands recorded at Vibromonk Studios with Danny Shatzky (Firewater,...
Aberystwyth has one music shop - Cerdd Ystwyth - and it celebrates its 25 anniversary this year. I am the first to admit that I am not particularly musical but the rest of the family are. My visits to Cerdd Ystwyth are usually errands on behalf of my wife who is a music teacher to pick up books, sheets of music, sometime instruments or often a general enquiry. On Saturday night we were kindly invited...
This isn’t your great-grandparents’ swinging vocal jazz. Oh wait, yes it is. [IN A SENTIMENTAL MOOD] “Opium-fueled” probably isn’t the first phrase that would pop into most listeners’ minds when asked to describe the Stolen Sweets’ new album, Sleepytime in Chinatown. After all, this is your great-grandparents’ popular music: swingin’ jazz in the...