Visit to "Paris Swing" Django exhibit in Jan 2013

Lango-Django

As you may have noticed in another thread, the Paris Museum of Music and National Library of France are co-hosting a Django "Swing de Paris" exhibition from Oct 6, 2012 to Jan 23, 2013 at the Cité de la musique (see more info from the museum below)

I'm now in the process of planning a trip to Paris to see this exhibition sometime in January 2013, and am currently negotiating with a lady who has an apartment in the 18th arrondissement... her price is 60 Euros per night single or 50 Euros double... we'll see what dates she has available in the next day or two. I just checked a two-star Paris hotel where I stayed at a few years ago ("Hotel de Mines" in the Boul St-Mich area) and single rooms there seem to be in the 100+ Euros per night...

As well as attending the Paris Swing show, I'm also hoping to spend some time at cool Paris clubs listening to some of those awesome French guitarists, and perhaps even work up enough nerve to get my own guitar out of the case...

Any djangobooks.com member who might be interested in joining me for such a junket, please make yourself known.

And any djangobooks.com member who lives in or near Paris and might be open to sharing a bottle of wine and a few guitar licks with North American visitors, please make yourself known, vous aussi.

Will Wilson
<guitarbanjoman@gmail.com>

***************
Django Reinhardt, Paris swing
From October 6th 2012 to January 23th 2013

Born in the back of a caravan into a family of performers, Django Reinhardt (1910-1953) might have grown up in the slums of the “Zone”, but he belongs to the aristocracy of swing. This “child of the breeze”, as Jean Cocteau liked to describe him, won over not just jazz-loving intellectuals, but also those attending public dances and the very fancy clients of select cabarets, with the magic of his guitar. And his popularity didn’t fade; on the contrary, it seems only to have grown as the craze for gypsy jazz found an echo in contemporary French songwriting and film. Independent and whimsical, revelling in the freedom so dear to his gypsy brothers, Django Reinhardt fascinated his contemporaries in the way his brilliant virtuosity triumphed over his handicap, as if he hadn’t lost two fingers at age 18, when his caravan burned down. While he co-headed the Quintette du Hot Club de France with Stephane Grappelli, Django launched a new kind of jazz - gypsy jazz - and shared the stage with some of the highest creators of the genre: Coleman Hawkins, Duke Ellington and Benny Carter. His fame reached all the way to the United States, who saw in this gypsy, who spoke not a word of English and lived in a caravan, a symbol of French eccentricity!

From the dances of the rue de Lappe to the Boeuf sur le toit, the nightclubs of Pigalle to the Salle Pleyel, the great movie theatres of the Champs-Elysées to the Cirque Médrano and the Saint-Ouen flea market, Django’s career is a geography of Parisian in itself. In addition to a collection of unpublished documents and the re-creation of the legendary Selmer guitar workshop, the exhibition gives a place to people who have captured the heart and soul of Paris: photographers like Eugène Atget, Brassaï, Émile Savitry, Willy Ronis and Robert Doisneau, as well as writers, painters and sculptors. All of these works reflect the cultural melting-pot of Django’s music, nourished by cosmopolitan influences and universal in scope.

redblues

See if the exhibition is moving and do Samois in June my friend

Lango-Django

Samois is way too scary for me, my friend.

In my dreams, I've just played my best solo and then some eleven year old gypsy kid plays next and makes me look like a total prat...

mobreau

Hey Lango,

I think your getting the wrong idea about Samois. It aint like that unless you want it to be. It would be crazy for you not to go if you have all the freedom in the world to do it?! If you don't like it, you just leave! If you don't feel comfortable playing, just watch. But..if you do go and make sure that you visit the Island, at least one night at samerou and then go hang a petit barbeu for a day. I think you will know you have made the right choice

Lango-Django

Thanks, mobreau! That's reassuring, maybe I will go to Samois after all...

See, here's the background... while attending Django in June, one of my Givone group buddies, Anthony, attended a workshop led by Stephane Wrembel. Stephane informed the group that in France, if you're playing in a circle of gypsy guitarists and the group feeling is that your solo is not "bringing it", then another gypsy will come and stand right in front of you to play the rest of your solo for you..!!! Scary...

The other workshop story that gave us a good laugh: Jeff Radaich informed his workshop that "Chicks love gypsy jazz."

Will

mobreau

Hey Lango,

Sure man, these things happen from time to time, but that is the same for anywhere i would of thought. Go to an N.Y session and get roasted y'know! I think jam etiquette is always over looked and you will see that in samois. Whether through ignorance, alcohol or mistaken bravado. The main thing is knowing where and when to play. If you believe you have something to add, play. If you don't, enjoy what is going on around you. Guitar playing aside it is a magical place and you will meet many people who will inspire for years to come both as players and human beings. This will be my 12th year man...I would never miss it.

Jim Kaznosky

Wrembel was on fire at DiJ this year. That particular jam session had quite a few zingers that stuck in my mind, the most memorable being "play from the abs." My take home from this was that he seemed to be saying these things to make sure folks were projecting (playing loud enough leads -do you have good technique), not playing speed for the sake of speed (playing melodically), have confidence in your playing, and knowing when you should probably sit out on a particular jam. I found this type of information useful, liked the way it was presented, and started taking lessons from him as a result.

Samois is in my future if I can scrape together the cash and have a crew to go with.

Passacaglia

jkaz wrote:

Wrembel was on fire at DiJ this year. That particular jam session had quite a few zingers that stuck in my mind, the most memorable being "play from the abs." My take home from this was that he seemed to be saying these things to make sure folks were projecting (playing loud enough leads -do you have good technique), not playing speed for the sake of speed (playing melodically), have confidence in your playing, and knowing when you should probably sit out on a particular jam. I found this type of information useful, liked the way it was presented, and started taking lessons from him as a result.

Samois is in my future if I can scrape together the cash and have a crew to go with.

That's wonderful, Jim. "Play from the abs." The connection is really apparent, thanks for posting this. I'd love to study with Stephane, congrats on your opportunity. I've decided to stay with rhythm training for the foreseeable future, though I do warm up with at least parts of both Stephane's Bistro Fada and Dolores. I'd love to hear how things are going as you continue to work with him.

Lango-Django

(I was going to make a joke here about the Wrembel abs, but on second thought..)