Practicing, Sincerity, Awareness, and Passion!

Al Watsky · January 2015

Jazzaferri wrote: »

GJ is similar to the trad jazz movement......playing in a style from a bygone era.
Some of the young guys in the genre are certainly taking the style to a new place, though I do kinda agree with Al that the rhythmic pulse is pretty old school.

Actually its my wife that vigorously objects to the woodchopping . I'm OK with some of that . ;')

Jazzaferri · January 2015

But it can boast an Evan Christopher.....a lot of trad jazz doesn't even have guitar, banjo is more typical.

What, I really like about swing jazz is that at least in my market area, it is bringing in a lot of young people. As their ear becomes more sophisticated and they get somewhat older perhaps we will see a revival in post bebop 50's and early 60's stuff.

WhatbI am seeing and hearing in GJ in my little part of the world is kind of a Newgrass vs Bleugrass thing. I suspect the same thing is happening in Paris from what I hear in the work of Beniot, Adrien Sebastian et al.

Also worthy of note, several of the pros I know are getting into the work of Charlie Christian, Dennis C among them. Personally I have always loved the work of Oscar Aleman.

Mitch · January 2015

Denis, you're gonna write us the Gypsy jazz musician bible! :-)

Bravo, great article.
I especially loved the mentions of the "with feel" detection device and people making faces when playing... it made me laugh, that's so true!

Seriously there are heaps of good advice and some sharp observations in your text. It's packed with principles that every musician should be aware of..

I totally agree with the Beethoven quote. Music, in first place, is meant to gives emotions and feelings to the listener.
That's why you can still manage to do a beautiful solo on a ballad, even playing with better trained musicians.

Anyway, thanks Denis for this rich and excellent article.

atomicrayco · January 2015

Thank you Denis for the wise and inspiring words.

dennis · January 2015

thanks folks!!!

These are the principles that I try to follow when producing videos for my DC Music School site.

The latest ones with Tcha Limberger are among my favorite productions. It's not really a lesson per se, more of an album with lots of bonuses for musicians. But when producing these songs, we were going for lots of variety in the way each song was played.

You can hear "la pompe" rhythm on just about every song, yet the way the rhythm guitar and bass sound is completely different from song to song.

Buco · January 2015

Yes, hats off to Denis.

I just watched the video with Adrien M on major licks which is amazing, just practicing and applying that can give you months of material to work on.

Jehu · January 2015

Great article, Denis. A lot to think about!

I'm very much looking forward to this one:
"the difference between Django’s jazz and Gypsy Jazz is enormous. Once again, it’s definitely deserving of a whole article of its own."

dennis · January 2015

i didn't bother to really participate in that facebook discussion as it had very little to do with my original post!

However, I just looked at the draft that I did last summer, and it's not as bad as I thought it was. Once again it is extremely detailed, perhaps more so than any of my other articles... a whopping 11 pages.... I 'll have to fine tune it, and maybe Michael can use it for next month's blog post!