Gypsy Jazz singers

woodamand

My wife, out of the blue, told me today that she wants to change the direction of our band, and get it more Gypsy-fied. She is our singer, you can check out what we sound like at www.yiddishrepublik.com. We do klezmer and Eastern European stuff anyway, but this is yet another reason I need to buy a GJ guitar - and learn to play it too! I know, years and years of work....
Anyway, I am really familiar with most genres of jazz, but I don't know beans about singers that work with GJ artists - can anyone enlighten me?
I love being nudged into buying gear!!!!!!

seeirwin

Check out Leah Zeger (http://www.leahzeger.com/). She is a great singer and an amazing violin player. She tours with Gonzalo on the regular (she sings on the New Hot Club record) and has her own band, too. Not 100% gypsy jazz, her album is great. She even sings an actual gypsy song:

Jon

I love singers, and songs! My favourite Django tracks are the classic ones with Freddie Taylor singing. I play in three bands that all feature singers. Here are a couple of my videos below. Also check out David Gastine with Samy Daussat, and my absolute favourites, Titi Bamberger and Tcha Limberger.

woodamand

Thanks to both of you, I need to check these out in more detail - like I said, I have heard almost no singers in this style so looking forward to learning more about this. So are there standard songs that folks sing with this music, like they do with the classic American jazz standards? I love playing those things!

Buco

Our band plays with a female singer and we do about 50/50 vocal/instrumental. When it comes to songs we do with vocals we just pick the songs we like mostly from American jazz standards collection, some French classics, Yiddish tune (Bei Mir), Gospel tune (Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down).

When it comes to female singers in the genre it doesn't get much better than Cyrille Aimee:
http://www.cyrillemusic.com/

woodamand

I just got to listen to the first cut from Jon. Of course, Georges Brassens, one of my two favorite French singer/songwriters - along with Charles Trenet. Fabulous version!!!!

woodamand

"So basically any jazz singer can fit into the genre without any special training - provided they are ready for the fact that it is a guitar-led genre and guitarists have a reputation for not being able to change key!" - you know the old joke, how do make a guitar player blind? Put sheet music in front of him!

Bones

Ha, brief shot of Gonzalo playing rhythm for JJ in that clip at 2:51!

PapsPier

It depends on what you want: as Stuart said, a large part of the repertoire is the same as the American standard songbook. But I disagree with him when he said that gypsy jazz is more jazz than gypsy, it depends on the approach you consider, on what you like.
Because if you are interested by the gypsy side, there are gypsy songs: traditional (or considered traditional now the ones sung by Schnuckenack) and original ones (for example the band Tabor Gypsy).

You can also take gypsy melodies you like and adapt english lyrics on it.
One interesting example is the romanian song Sanie cu zurgalai. It is often played by gypsies. It was adapted for french audience and sung by Edith Piaf and in english by Les Paul and Mary Ford with the title Johnny is the boy for me. And Hansche Weiss sings it with lyrics in romanes, De man Devla.

Some gypsy bands also played german songs which were popular at that time (Ich bin die Sonne, den Monde und die stern, Illusionen, Bei Dir war es imer so schon)

And there is also as said previously the French repertoire (Brassens, Piaf, Trenet etc.)

And to finish some lyrics have been added after a while to the most popular compositions of Django:
Melodie au Crepuscule (Loves melody by Nelly Kay)
Swing 39 (=Je t aime by Irene de Trebert)
Swing 42 (= Swing Reverie by Irene de Trebert)
Nuages (by Lucienne Delyle)
Manoir de mes reves (lyrics by Laurence Riesner)
Tears (=Larmes by Edith Piaf)
Fleur d ennui (by Lys Gauty)
Douce Ambiance (by Orkest Polytour)
Crepuscule (by Lys Gauty)

Here is a link to a CD with several of these songs
http://www.djangostation.com/Django-Chante,778.html

And finally something a bit weird: a gypsy poetess put lyrics on two famous Django solos. Minor Swing becomes It is Christmas Day
Tears become Like the pure water
Be careful, it is really scary!



Good luck to build your repertoire among all these propositions

PapsPier

And by the way I like your sound, that is true that you sound like "in a cabaret in Budapest in 30s''

woodamand

Oh man that is weird, scary indeed! That is a lot of great info, much appreciated. And many thanks for the compliment on our sound, makes my day.