What's Your Gypsy Jazz Origin Story???

Jazzaferri · September 2012

Great story Ted.

rimm · September 2012

..heres a link to a similar topic, interesting stuff alright

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6473

jlander9 · September 2012

Hi rimm,
I didn't realize there was a previous thread. you know the saying " Great minds....." I'll call this one the 2012 origin stories update. It can be an every 3 year thing!(jkng) I read the stories in the other thread, very cool man.

anthon_74 · September 2012

Little did I know, I had been getting inundated with Django for years. All I knew was that every Woody allen movie I would watch seemed to have a very cool sounding Jazz tune during the opening credits, and often during the movie.
Being a rocker, and very reluctant to buy new music, I never bothered to research it.
the first time I really HEARD about Django was also during a movie called "The Pallbearer" in which 2 characters are bonding over coffee around their shared love for this "Django Reinhardt" person who as they said "only had 2 fingers" ...
Then of course I heard his name mentioned more in the movie Sweet and Lowdown, which, I too believed was about a real person. Even then, although I enjoyed the music, I never really went out and bought the CD's, and therefore it faded from my mind.
Of course, being a rocker, I was still completely consumed with the David bOwie/BEatles/ singer songwriter thing.

AFter a while, though, I realized that lead guitar in rock and roll didn't call to me, but I wanted a style to work on to become GREAT.
Then shortly after, I saw an add in Craigslist by a guy named Louis Matthee saying "Gypsy Jazz guitar lessons".
on a whim I went and checked it out. He told me all about Django, gave me a mix CD to listen too, AND told me my rhythm playing had to be completely retrained !!( I was pissed because I believed myself to be a topflight rhythm guy from the pete townsend school of rock).

7 years later I went to my first Django in June and the rest is history in the making.

Cheers !

Guillaume · September 2012

Great stories from all you guys.

My story is that of a kid who grew up in Paris and never knew all this music was there until years later. My dad owned a couple of Django LPs and I also distincly remember hearing a record of the Rosenberg trio at my uncle's house, but that's about it. Now growing up in France, of course small hole guitars were commonplace, as well as musette bands at the July 14th balls, but gypsy jazz was virtually underground for most of my childhood years (70's and 80's). In the mid 1990's I moved to the US and embarked on a decade and a half long journey through American vernacular music. From rock to blues, to bluegrass, to country, to Western swing and next thing you know, Django's turning 100 and his music, festivals, DVDs, books, guitars are popping up everywhere. Like a lot of the folks here, it's Bireli's Gypsy Project CDs that really got me hooked at that point. So all of sudden I delving back into what is largely part of my culture but still very new to me. I am buying up books and magazines when I am home for holidays, catching shows at venues 5 min from where I grew up, having to re-learn music terms in my own language because I've gotten so used to everything musical being in English... Django in June 2011 was next on my path to reclaim my cultural heritage. After years of being the weird French guy who plays Bluegrass, I am loving playing "my" music and it's so refreshing to meet so many Americans who love France and French culture. I may have found my musical place in the world. And I have met so many great people in a short couple of years. I think this story is just beginning...
Swing on brothers,

Guillaume

rimm · September 2012

Its a deal! 8)

Lango-Django · September 2012

When I was thirteen years old in 1964, two things hit me real hard: puberty and the Beatles. Like millions of other teenagers, I immediately started growing my hair longer and trying to learn to play the guitar.

I started out trying to play the kind of pop and folk stuff on the hit parade that most of my peers listened to, but gradually got interested in all kinds of "roots" music: folk, bluegrass, blues, ragtime, etc.

I began searching through the LP's at the local public library to see what kind of "roots" albums I could find, and eventually started including some jazz recordings in my browsing.

Now, most of the library's LP's were of the cool modern jazz of the 50's and 60's, which I found didn't really appeal to me, but somehow I was lucky enough to stumble upon some re-issue albums of Django and the HCQ. I guess this would've been in 1966 or 1967.

It's hard now to remember back that far, but I think the very first cut I ever listened to was "Blue Drag"... Wow! I'd never heard guitar played like this... not only was this guy a technical virtuoso, but his music was so passionate!

When he played in harmony along with the violin--- using that amazing vibrato, which I'd never, ever heard on acoustic guitar!... it practically ached with feeling!

Or when he casually improvised all those exotic gypsy minor runs at breathtaking speed--- WOW! I knew right away that for me this was the ultimate in guitar playing.

I kept listening to Django over the years, though never daring to try and play like him. I read every book or magazine I could find about him over the years, treasuring all the crazy stories.

Over the years, my playing of the fretted instruments (guitar, banjo and mandolin) went through various musical genres. I discovered another guitar player that I really, really loved: Eddie Lang... and for a while, I was lucky enough to play in a band with a bunch of other crazy musicians who loved that wonderful American 1920's/30's jazz as much as me: Bix and Tram and Teagarden and Venuti and Steve Brown; Fats Waller and Duke Ellington... we had a blast!

I always knew I wanted to try and play more like Django, but I just didn't know where to begin.

However, it turned out that the internet was my friend!

So the next year after my retirement from my schoolteaching gig, I was able to attend "Django in June" in 2008... I followed Michael Horowitz around all week and immediately started seriously working on my RH technique.

After working through "Gypsy Picking", I tried a bunch of different instructional manuals to bring my LH up to par, but nothing seemed to really click for me until I finally decided to really devote myself to the Daniel Givone method early in 2012.

Now, after many months of hard slogging, I finally feel like I'm finally starting to get to the point where I'm really playing jazz instead of just regurgitating licks.

I know I'll never play like my hero Django or any of the top contemporary GJ players I've seen and heard and admired, but I'm at least at the point where I can have some fun playing this style.

And for a fella who's now 60 years old, even being a mediocre GJ guitarist still feels pretty damned awesome!

jlander9 · September 2012

Great stories. Glad to know I wasn't the only one who thought Emmet was a real person! Also, the Beatles always seem to work there way in there somehow!!

I was also a Beatle fanatic, has some one Gypsy Jazzed Honey Pie? Well, seems like all paths have lead to the same road....All it takes is that one tune to make the spine tingle :!: Keep em coming!