Romane L’esprit Manouche: A Comprehensive Study of Gypsy Jazz Guitar

336 pages with CD

This massive book offers a comprehensive study of the Gypsy jazz or Manouche guitar style as perceived by French guitarists Derek Sebastian and Romane, two of the finest modern day practitioners of the Django Reinhardt style.

Each of the book’s thirty-six progressive chapters consists of four parts: A.) Technique developed through exercises, chord progressions/diagrams, and illustrations of fingerboard positions; B.) A harmony lesson with leads in the Manouche style; C.) Soloing techniques based on the harmonic structure of a given theme; and D.) Self-testing materials with answers provided at the close of the book.

The companion CD for L’Espirit Manouche is unique in that it provides 98 play-along MIDI files that exactly parallel the order of the exercises, examples and pieces in the book as well as audio tracks of excerpts from eighteen Romane favorites from the Gypsy jazz repertoire. The MIDI tracks, which can be accessed via most audio players on PC or Macintosh computers, allow the student to play along with both short phrases and extensive rhythm tracks- at any desired tempo; The audio tracks on the companion disc can be played on any CD player.

L’Espirit Manouche not only makes Gypsy jazz accessible; it offers an opportunity to master the Manouche style. While many exercises and tunes appear in both standard notation and tab, not to mention chord or fretboard diagrams, standard notation is predominant.