Fapy Lafertin & Lejazz - Swing guitars & Hungaria remastered

klaatu

Michael Bauer only has to buy 13 more to pass him.

I think I've owned 14 guitars in my whole life, but they sure weren't Selmers!

Of course when Fapy bought his, they were probably nowhere near the price they command nowadays.

Ahab

Yes, I heard a story that Fapy managed to get one second-hand from a music shop in Wales back in the Seventies. Apparently, they were touring and found this music shop in a small towm and Fapy saw a Selmer just sitting there in the window, the shop was closed so he waited till they opened the next day and he bought it. Needless to say, I doubt he paid anywhere near what they go for today!

dBlackie

klaatu wrote:

Michael Bauer only has to buy 13 more to pass him.

I think I've owned 14 guitars in my whole life, but they sure weren't Selmers!

Of course when Fapy bought his, they were probably nowhere near the price they command nowadays.

There was one Selmer for sure that he really was into. It had red machine head knobs. I'll ask him about it.

dBlackie

Ahab wrote:

Yes, I heard a story that Fapy managed to get one second-hand from a music shop in Wales back in the Seventies. Apparently, they were touring and found this music shop in a small towm and Fapy saw a Selmer just sitting there in the window, the shop was closed so he waited till they opened the next day and he bought it. Needless to say, I doubt he paid anywhere near what they go for today!

That was before my time but for sure there's 'cheap Selmer' stories. I'll ask him about that also. The real search though in the early days with Fapy was for good coffee. I do remember visiting Italian restaurants first thing in the morning banging on the door and waving £10 notes for them to turn the machine on.
There is a guy here who bought a Maccaferri for £5 in a car boot sale in the 70's. I've played on it.

Ahab

dBlackie wrote:

That was before my time but for sure there's 'cheap Selmer' stories. I'll ask him about that also. The real search though in the early days with Fapy was for good coffee. I do remember visiting Italian restaurants first thing in the morning banging on the door and waving £10 notes for them to turn the machine on.
There is a guy here who bought a Maccaferri for £5 in a car boot sale in the 70's. I've played on it.

Lucky guy!

Also I can understand Fapy's frustration at getting good coffee in the UK! Not always the best...

klaatu

dBlackie wrote:

There is a guy here who bought a Maccaferri for £5 in a car boot sale in the 70's. I've played on it.

Where is he now? I'll give him £100 for it. £95 profit!

dBlackie

klaatu wrote:

dBlackie wrote:

There is a guy here who bought a Maccaferri for £5 in a car boot sale in the 70's. I've played on it.

Where is he now? I'll give him £100 for it. £95 profit!

I'll put you in touch

Archtop Eddy

Just a quick note to Dave that I received my copies of the CDs -- safe and sound. Beautiful packaging with historic photos and meaningful write-ups, all to help generate further information about these great recording sessions. It's clear much thought and effort went into these recordings: Finding and using old ribbon mics, using a retired BBC sound engineer, and recording multiple takes to get the proper sound and recordings. One of the most interesting parts of the CD packaging is the photo of the log from the recording sessions. If I'm reading the information correctly, it shows many, many multiple takes on the tracks (as much as eleven takes on J'attentrai alone), and then apparently a circle drawn around the take number selected for release. It looks like there was as much as 113 total takes -- and as noted in one of the photo cut-lines, seven days creating the sound by engineer Lance Andrews. Perhaps Dave can address this here to tell me if I'm correct in interpreting this log and add any other thoughts about these recording sessions. Either way, thanks Dave for this momentous re-release. It's clear from the careful efforts taken from recording to documentation that you knew at the time this would be a very special and important contribution to Hot Club and Gypsy jazz idioms. We all benefit greatly from your foresight. Well done man! AE

Jim Kaznosky

This is a great collection. I bought it a few weeks ago and have not stopped listening to it.

dBlackie

Archtop Eddy wrote:

Perhaps Dave can address this here to tell me if I'm correct in interpreting this log and add any other thoughts about these recording sessions. Either way, thanks Dave for this momentous re-release. It's clear from the careful efforts taken from recording to documentation that you knew at the time this would be a very special and important contribution to Hot Club and Gypsy jazz idioms. We all benefit greatly from your foresight. Well done man! AE

Hey Eddie. Apologies for the late reply. Just finishing a tour with Evan Christopher and my usual chauffeur Fapy Lafertin wasn’t on this gig so I’ve been driving a lot! Glad you’re enjoying the CDs as much as I enjoyed the remastering process. Revisiting these recordings, and the vids of the sessions (I’ve never seen them until now) has been one full of intense creative memories. Working with Fapy again after so long has been great.

Multiple takes. Too right!! No recording separation and a band full of energy and enthusiasm? We played the tunes again and again and again until everyone was happy. Even if Fapy was OK with his solo but not with the section, we’d do it again. Our quartet was used to playing long acoustic gigs and this was quite similar. We had a lot of stamina and had a loud acoustic sound.
It looks like 113 takes of J’attendrai but nope!! The columns you referring to are the TNo., the running ‘take’ count. So day 1/take 1 until day 5/take 1102. The PNo is the registration mark on the particular DAT. I think we did most of ‘What a difference a day made’ and ‘Hungaria’. I’ve found on video at least 20 complete versions of ‘Hungaria’ all recorded in the same session of 3 hours or so.

There was a lot of criticism after Swing Guitars came out for ignoring all the current recording methods but man,..the band sounded old to start with! Really old! Soon after, all that died down and people started appreciating. (Judging by the sales anyway..)
An amusing aside. We sent out two or three tracks an a pre-release unmarked cassettes to a few people. One, a very famous Gypsy guitarist (un-named), was soon spreading the word that he’d come about some unreleased and unheard of Django recordings. Pretty funny!!!
I’m more than satisfied with these recordings. Re-listening now, taking them apart and remastering I hadn’t appreciated how much everyone had their own signature sound. Steve Elsworth was not the best studio violinist in the world but there’s no doubt it’s Steve playing. Fapy obviously sounds like Fapy at the top of his game, and the rhythm section also... thumping, pedestrian, unforgiving. For that reason I think, if I hear them amongst a playlist of other Gypsy swing tracks, at Le Quecumbar for instance, they have a unique identity.

On a personal note I was lucky for sure... my first professional concerts as a guitarist were with Fapy.. poor guy! I didn’t have a clue!