Take 5 With Benny Carter

Prior to the arrival of Charlie Parker, there were three acknowledged masters of the alto sax, Johnny Hodges, Willie Smith, and Benny Carter. Hodges and Smith are best known for their associations with Duke Ellington and Jimmy Lunceford. Benny Carter had a career that went beyond such an easy linkage. He was a member of as well as led a big band. He also played the trumpet, was an arranger as well as being a composer. Today is a short playlist of "King Carter" whose career extended for many decades. We start with a 1933 recording, "Lonesome Nights."

Next up is Carter with Django Reinhardt from 1938 doing "I'm Coming Virginia."

Carter was a favorite of Norman Granz and his Jazz at the Philharmonic tours. Here he is with Coleman Hawkins performing "Blue Lou.

Here he performs a song of his that has become somewhat of a standard, "When The Lights Are Low," with the American Jazz Orchestra.

We close this brief playlist of Benny Carter's music with the Benny Carter All-Stars performing "Blues Walk" and Take the A Train."

Exhilirating Gypsy Jazz from Debarre and Beier

I was introduced to the jazz accordionist (and accordina player) Ludovic Beier when he performed at the Kennedy Center as part of the Django Reinhardt Festival All Stars with Dorado Schmitt and others. This concert of “Gypsy Jazz” preceded the actual Festival run at New York’s Birdland and was among the best musical performances I have been fortunate enough to see in some time. The mix of their astonishing virtuosity, wonderful group interplay and melodically based improvisation was exhilarating to listen to.

Subsequent to the concert I purchased several recordings by participants and others in this musical tradition that takes its inspiration from the legendary Django Reinhardt and the Quintette du Hot Club de France. One such album was by guitarist Angelo Debarre and Beier, Swing Rencontre on Le Chant Du Monde. DeBarre is one of the leading guitarists in this style today and these recordings (originally recorded in 2001) have the two backed by rhythm guitarist Michel Delacroix and bassist Antonio Licusati. A drummer is added on two selections, and on one number, Jean-Paul Jamot replaces Licusati.

This recording is comprised of interpretations of a few standards, several classic Django Reinhardt compositions, and some recent contributions from Debarre, Beier and Dorado Schmitt. Beier on accordion plays a musical counterpoint to Debarre’s guitar, similar to Stéphane Grappelli’s violin to Reinhardt. The accordion has had a prominent place in the French musette tradition as well as in gypsy jazz and Beier brings a rich approach to complement Debarre’s dazzling fretwork while Delacroix and Licusati lay a swinging backing.

After playing a couple bars of There Will Never Be Another You, at a dreamy tempo, Debarre kicks up the tempo a couple of notches as he states the theme and launches his improvisation followed by an equally dazzling accordion solo. The dazzling, and crisp technique is matched with marvelous melodic improvisation and its a delight to hear them trade fours. Though instrumental, the music they produce sings and soars. Several of the selections are amongst the most famous of Reinhardt’s repertoire including Swing 42, Dinette, Minor Swing and the lovely Nuages.

“Minor Swing,” originally from Reinhardt and Grappelli is a high-spirited romp and they certainly do justice to it. Most of the arrangements were contributed by the pair, but bassist Licusati provide the dramatic overtones to the rendition of El Maintenant, which is known in English speaking parts of the world as What Now, My Love. Beier penned Paris Plage, a lively duo with Debarre that opens with driving accordion and Debarre comping behind him before the two switch roles with Beier providing an organ-like texture under the guitar. Debarre’s Have You Something? is a lovely ballad while Beier and bassist Jean-Paul Jamot contributed the lively original Michel Got Rhythm, dedicated to rhythm guitarist Delacroix.

This is a recording that should be readily accessible with its strong melodic foundation, swing rhythms and driving inspired improvisations. The music on Swing Rencontre is exciting and brilliant.


And a youtube video of these two live.

Gypsy Jazz Provides Fascinating History of Django Reinhardt and His Legacy

Gypsy Jazz: In Search of Django Reinhardt and the Soul of Gypsy Swing

by Michael Dregni

Oxford University Press

Michael Dregni, who authored the highly regarded biography, Django: the Life and Music of a Gypsy Legend, and co-author of Django Reinhardt And the Illustrated History of Gypsy Jazz, adds to the literature on the Gypsy Jazz tradition that emerged from Django’s innovative music with Gypsy Jazz: In Search of Django Reinhradt and the Soul of Gypsy Swing. Its a historical chronicle of the music that was founded by Reinhardt and which thrives today with musicians still inspired by Django and extending his music today with his modern musical descendants being as exhilarating and original as Reinhardt was seventy odd years ago.

Dregni centers the book around Django and his biography but weaves in the world he was raised in and how that world changed as he grew up. We are taken to the Gypsy Caravans, the world of Gypsies and their music and musicians, and the musical scene of Paris and France dominated by the accordion based musette. Django’s biography is set forth as we are to the luthiers of Paris and the guitars that Django and his contemporaries used and the Pigatelle which is where many of the bals and dance halls were. The threads of his life are presented from his learning violin, banjo and then guitar, as he worked in the Russian cabarets, and the dance halls, his early exposure to jazz and the near fatal figure that left his left hand disfigured and scarred and where he had only use of the index and middle figures and had to learn new fingerings and chord forms.

There is the meeting with Stéphane Grappelli, the jams that led to the formation of the Quintette du Hot Club de France and the recordings under the auspices of Charles Delauney, first rejected by a major label because they were viewed as too modern. He traces how the Quintette became a sensation including a triumphant European tour cut short by the Second World War, and how music was Django’s salvation during World War 11, as his fellow Gypsies, like the Jews, were carted off to the death camps, as he played what the Nazi propagandists labeled ‘degenerate music.’ A new quintette was formed with clarinet replacing violin and a drummer added and in the midst of the horrors of the war, Django waxed two of his most famous recordings, the impressionist Nuages, and Les Yeux Noirs, or ‘Dark Eyes’. After World War II, Django was affected by the new harmonies and rhythms of bebop and continued to evolve musically. He toured America with Duke Ellington, and in 1953 he died of a cerebral hemorrhage and his singular musical voice was stilled.

As Dregni makes quite clear, the story of Django Reinhardt was not the only story of Gypsy jazz. There were contemporaries of his that were working along similar lines in the era of what was revolutionary musical changes. And he introduces us Django’s contemporaries such as his brother Joseph ‘Nin-Nin’; The Ferret brothers, Baro, Sarane and Matelo; legendary guitarist Tchan Tchou; Lousson Baumgartner (Django’s son from his common-law wife); accordionist Gus Viseur (who made pioneering recordings with Baro including Swing Valse); and their musical descendants including Les Freres Ferré, Jean-Jacques Boulou’ and Elié ‘Elios’, Stochelo Rosenberg, Birelli Lagrene, Dallas Baumgartner, Angello DeBarre, (Django’s great-grandson); David Reinhardt (Django’s grandson), and the American gypsies such as Johnny Guitar and Danny Fenders (google his name and you will come across a you tube video that the author posted that will blow your mind).

This volume is far more than a litany of performer bios. Dregni brings the performers and their world to life. He takes us into their world, catching them at performances as well as welcomed into their caravans. He vividly describes the annual pilgrimage by the gypsies at Les Saintes-Marie-de-la-Mer with annual religious rituals and celebrations. He provides the cultural history and beliefs underlying this annual celebration which also provides a period of fervent musical cross-pollination by different musical traditions brought together along with a certain craziness.

Dregni describes a lesson in Django’s style that David Reinhardt teaches him and takes us to a performance by Danny Fender and His Band of Gypsies at San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts Theater. In meeting Dallas Baumgartner, he is taken to the caravan of Dallas’ grandmother, Madame Rose. There is the touching moment when he is sharing family pictures of Django (that had been collected by Charles Delauney) with, Madame Rose, who had never seen photos of Django as a young man, and when she sees him at 18 with Madame Rose’s mother, Bella, and Rose has tears in her eyes as she had never seen a picture of her mother as a young girl. Dregni leaves the photo with her.

The author’s passion for his subject can be infectious. This writer purchased Django Reinhardt And the Illustrated History of Gypsy Jazz after reading this pre-release copy, as well as a number of recordings that Dregni recommends here. A remarkable work that serves as a marvelous entrance into this fascinating and exhilarating music.

I received a pre-release copy from the publisher. This review originally appeared in the April 2008 Jazz & Blues Report (issue 303). Inspiration to run this review at this time was provided by a performance of the Django Reinhardt All Stars featuring Dorado Schmidt at the Kennedy Center on October 29.

Evan Christopher's musical meeting of Django and Sidney Bechet

Evan Christopher has established himself as amongst the premiere clarinet players in jazz today. While associated with more traditional forms of jazz, Christopher has displayed a healthy catholicism in the range of music he plays whether traditional Sidney Bechet numbers or a medley of Ornette Coleman compositions. After Hurricane Katrina, he was briefly based in Paris at the invitation of the French government. Among his various groups is Django à la Créole, which is his effort to bridge the gypsy swing of the legendary guitarist Django Reinhardt and the New Orleans creole tradition. In 2008, they issued their original album Django à la Créole and in 2010 issued their second recording, Finesse (Frémeaux & Associés).

Django à la Créole is comprised of Christopher on clarinet, David Blenkhorn on lead guitar, Dave Kelbie on rhythm guitar and Sébatien Giradot on bass. As the drummer less instrumentation suggests, there is perhaps a bit more intimacy and chamber music quality to the performances similar to that of Reinhardt’s own recordings. While Reinhardt and Bechet lived in Paris for several years and likely their paths crossed, they never recorded, although Bechet recorded Nuages. 12 days after the guitarist passed. A couple of Bechet compositions bookend the eleven performances here, starting with the West Indian flavored Tropical Moon, where Blenkhorn’s guitar weaves single notes and chords around Christopher’s entrancing clarinet lead as the other two deliver a swinging rhythm. The closing Passaporte Ao Paraiso (Passport to Paradise), which is treated as a Brazilian Choro, and again displays Christopher’s warm, woody tone.

The title track was by bassist Billy Taylor and was originally recorded in a trio with Duke Ellington and clarinetist Barney Bigard. Several months later, it was recorded in Europe by Reinhardt in the company of Taylor, Bigard and Ellington trumpeter, Rex Stewart. On this, Blenkhorn states the theme before Christopher enters with a slight touch of vibrato (perhaps a bit more Bechet style on this) followed by a lovely electric guitar solo. A brisk Riverboat Shuffle features some delightful interplay between Blenkhorn and Christopher again, with Christopher’s clarinet evoking some of the charm and heat of Bix Beiderbecke’s cornet, with Blenkhorn particularly nice here.

Christopher’s Django à la Créole, is an original based on Reinhardt’s Improvisation #3 which Christopher says he arranged in the manner of the spanish tinge compositions of Jelly Roll Morton such as The Crave. The guitar accompaniment adds a flamenco accent to the performance. Solid Old Man is a charming performance of a Rex Stewart blues that was originally recorded at the same Paris session as Finesse, and displays Christopher’s warmth, tone and phrasing in his marvelous blues playing.

Evan Christopher at Louisiana Music Factory

Song d'Automne (Autumn Dream) by English composer Archibald Joyce is a waltz transformed into a lively samba and followed by Hoagy Charmichael’s Jubilee that Louis Armstrong introduced in a Mae West film. Armstrong was one of Reinhardt’s idols and in addition to Christopher’s thrilling playing, guitarist Blenkhorn interpolates quotes from Armstrong’s recordings of St. Louis Blues and the famous introduction of Mahogany Hall Stomp, in his delightful playing. Other strong performances include the delightful performance of Louis Moreau Gottschalk Creole Eyes, originally composed for solo piano, and the rendition here  highlights some of the Cuban influences in this 19th Century composition. Féerie is an usual hot tempo Reinhardt original with precise, warp speed playing followed by a lovely gypsy-creole distillation of the Ellington class Mood Indigo which Barney Bigard claimed he was authored the second theme with more lovely clarinet.

The originality and invention that Evan Christopher and his associates bring is thoroughly captivating. I had been waiting for several months for Finesse to be available in the United States and the wait was well worth it. Highly recommended, this is available from www.lousianamusicfactory.com and other sources.

This was a purchase.

Evan Christopher and Django à la Créole

From the London CD release party for Evan Christopher's Django à la Créole (Lejazzetal & Classic Jazz), a tribute to the great Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt, performing "I Know That You Know," which Django recorded, but Christopher prefaces the performance by referring to the great Jimmy Noone. This is a marvelous CD, with other songs performed including Django's marvelous "Nuages,"as well as the love closing medley of Tears and Djangology. The empathy of the band and the music comes through in this video which should hopefully lead a few of you to sample more of the music on this recording.

I only have had the good fortune to see Evan perform live a few years back at Donna's on the edge of the French Quarter in a group with Tom McDermott, and have the marvelous duet album that they recorded, Danza (STR Digital). I have been enthralled by his wonderfully warm, fluid playing. He has a marvelous live album, Live At The Meridien (Jazz Club), where does a remarkable medley of Ornette Coleman's Ramblin and Lonely Woman, as well as Scott Joplin's, The Entertainer, and Duke Ellington's Prelude to a Kiss. Nat Hentoff wrote quite an enthusiastic piece in Jazz Times about Delta Bound, with pianist Dick Hyman, on Arbors.

Django à la Créole be obtained from (among other sources) the Louisiana Music Factory and cdbaby.com. The Louisiana Music Factory carries the other referenced recordings and more that Evan can be heard on.