American lead guitarists

AndrewUlle

Gypsy players -
Who in your opinion in the US comes the closest to really getting the sound/ style of gypsy lead playing? I was listening to some Jazz Manouche playlists on Spotify and it seems once they (American bands) got past the first chorus and/or beyond the melody, their solos were nothing like the European players - more like random scales and arpeggios that while technically fitting, were not very musical. Of course, any of these lead players is heads and shoulders above my level so I'm not trying to put them down...

ChrisMartin

Tread carefully Andrew; I dared to suggest something similar some time ago and got shot down in flames by the great and good on here.

dennis

Well it depends what you mean Gypsy playing/sound. I've said it before many times, but to me, many music styles are more than scales / arpeggios / licks, they're often related to a community that has its own culture (sometimes more than one). This is definitely the case with western Gypsies (sinti) playing the music of Django Reinhardt. Most people call that Gypsy Jazz.

But then nowadays, we have people from all over the world playing Gypsy Jazz, many have never had any kind of real contact with Gypsies. Some of these players are fantastic musicians too, so it's not a question of better or worse music, but a question of sound. The vast majority of these players dont' sound anything like the different Gypsy schools out there.

In North America, practically no one has had serious contact with these Gypsy musicians. Someone brought this up to me a week ago. Seeing them in concert at a festival is not enough, I'm talking about going to their camps and spending time with them, eating, talking, etc. The way these musicians learn is entirely different from the way most people learn.

The only people I can think of who have had true contact with these musicians in North America are Stephane Wrembel, Siv Brun Li, and myself. I'm sure I'm forgetting one or two people.... Stephane hasn't cared to sound "like a Gypsy" for over a decade, he's doing his own thing, but nonetheless, he spent much of his youth at Gypsy camps. Siv is an ethnomusicologist and not a guitarist who does a lot of research about Sinti and their music. I, myself, was once extremely obsessed with the sound that you are talking about, but am no longer because if I may dare say it, I understand what it is now after having spent so much time with Sinti musicians (and non-musicians). Also, I can't really say I'm much of a "musician" these days since I'm too busy producing / transcribing stuff.

Being part of the community is just the first step, then you have to understand their approach to music, it's a complicated topic, but a fascinating one.

That said, within the Sinti community , there are many different cultures (not just music but day to day life). I'm probably one of the few non-Gypsies in the world to have spent equal time with Sinti from France, Germany, Belgium, Holland. I've had very little contact with the ones from Italy. These are the countries/regions where most Sinti can be found. The German Sinti are different from the French, different from the Dutch, etc both musically and socially.

Here's a controversial statement: the sound is not in the blood but in the environment. I've met Gypsy musicians born and raised in America, who sound nothing like their cousins in Europe. Again, I'm not talking about quality of music but of sound.

wim

Andrew Ulle wrote: »

...their solos were nothing like the European players - more like random scales and arpeggios that while technically fitting, were not very musical

To be fair, a lot of Europeans play like that too...

scot

Chris and I will just have to agree to disagree - I have the idea that he does not like American guitarists because they are Americans and I do like nearly all of them in spite of this serious shortcoming Also like French, Dutch, etc. My opinion, after playing music of all kinds for 50 years or so, is that anyone can play any kind of music. My personal experiences have proved this to me countless times. We don't insist that opera singers be Italian. But there is often only one learning path for many kinds of music. And it appears that there is only one way to learn how to play like a sinti gypsy, a way not available for most.

American guitarists don't sound like European sinti gypsies because they are not European sinti gypsies, and Dennis explained this hows and whys of this a lot better than I ever could. After all he's really the only N American guitarist who ever went to the gypsy camps and learned it they way they learn it.

American gypsy guitar players like Danny Fender don't sound like sinti gypsies. Neither do French gitane gypsies like Maurice Ferre or Ninine Garcia, or French guitarists like Patrick Saussois or Dutch guitarists like Reinier Voet.

There are many fine guitarists playing this kind of music in N America. If they don't sound like European gypsies, so what? Who says they have to or even want to? Guitarists like Roberto Rosenman, Chris Bezant, Ross Bliss and Denis Chang in Canada, and John Jorgenson, Raul Reynoso, Dave Biller, ****, Sam Miltich, Paul Mehling and Troy Chapman here in the states, to name just a few - these guys all play music directly descended from Django with great skill and imagination and originality, in the way their own environments directed. That's not wrong. Not liking it also isn't wrong.

Chris - do you actually have a Lotus/Caterham Super 7 per your avatar? Coolest car ever! Didn't you work in F1?

NylonDave

I think that if someone publishes a book explaining how to play a style of music and people believe that the book is right then for those people the results of following that advice can become the style for them. Then they write their own book..... and so it goes.

Besides that there is a matter of judging like with like. I play flamenco and classical and don't enjoy listening to petty assertions about the supposed superiority of one over the other. The aesthetics are different. And in general people will choose someone from the 'enemy' camp to typify the weaknesses of the 'inferior' style. So it will be Paco compared to a tyrannical and unaccomplished provincial teacher, or Julian Bream making Jesse Cook ridiculous.

It seems fairer to me to compare and enjoy the very different approaches of say Bireli and Julian Lage, or Bireli and Stochelo, or Julian and Tony Rice, or Nina Simone and Jeff Buckley.

If a lack of authenticity troubles you in others then you might find that, like me, you are actually really only uncomfortable with your own inauthenticity. I am as upset with my inability to sound like myself as I am disappointed by my inability to sound like Django. I think that getting better at either would help me be better at the other.

I don't think that I am alone in this.


But the modern marketplace of ideas and music and vested interests and pathological reason can be challenging. Even a voice seeking earnestly for personal expression can sound hollow and unsatisfactory in the company of too much cliché, too much trite backslapping naval gazing unaccomplished intellectually lazy pandering smug glib twitter ready dehumanising poppy slicing playground politics. You know that kind of expression enjoyed by men who play only for themselves and with expensive toys. And in such company confident inanity might be applauded roundly providing, as it does, a salve for the deep knowledge of a personal lack of imagination in ears hungry for old ideas that never lose their lustre no matter how often discredited on rational grounds.

Still despite that, cometh the hour cometh the Nero. There will always be new heroes, and we will assuredly deserve them....


D.

AndrewUlle

I was very concerned that my post would be taken more harshly than I meant. I am certainly not holding myself up as the best to judge, since my skills are so far below practically anyone on this forum. Perhaps it just happened to be the uninspired players I was hearing on Spotify that day; probably there are some terrific US players who just haven't any recordings on Spotify.

While my own skills are weak, I do have a good ear for quality, and this is what I was talking about. There are many musical styles that I personally don't get into, jazz or otherwise, but still I can tell whether a performance is good and/or the musician is displaying talent. My original post was made after sitting through some painfully inartful solos (I won't name the group) in traditional-styled GJ that made me wonder "did this guy think this solo through or just improvise it in one or two takes?"

So I guess my question was more "who are the top American players in the genre," not so much a criticism of all American GJ guitarists. I want to expand my library beyond the pantheon of Bireli, Angelo, Tchavolo, etc.

Thanks to all who answered! Sorry for any offense, none was intended.

Buco

Yes there's been something similar as @Chris Martin says and one before that too, somewhat heated similarly.

I have to be honest and say that most of my listening is made up by European players. At the same time I'll occasionally listen to HCSF and I love a lot of stuff Pazzo plays.
Then there are all of the awesome Monk covers they did.
Gonzalo and Stephane both chose to live in the US.
There are players less known but every bit as good as the best of them.
Koran Agan from NY for example, whom I listen to and I enjoy his playing equally to European guys. Check him out if you want to hear a player who truly has his own voice and prefers musicality over showmanship.
Even Chicago's virtuoso Alfonso Ponticelli isn't exactly a household name even among GJ fans. Very well versed in Django language, with a lot of showmanship, but hey he's a ton of fun to see and hear live.
He played the main stage at Samois. If they thought he's good enough, well...

@NylonDave is on to something when he says we maybe should compare Bireli to Lage.
Here's why: there's something that pushes your playing more then talent and hard work alone when you're surrounded and live in the environment that's awash with like minded musicians and also has a rich history and tradition of greatness in that style.
Be it Paris, New York or Gypsy community, you will go further when you're pushed, inspired and challenged by your peers.
But that's why I also think that golden age of North American Gypsy jazz is still coming. For example Max O'Rourke is one of those guys we will keep hearing about.
Every year I go to Django in June there are more and more young guys who already sound pretty impressive.
That opens another debate because there's also a lot of athleticism involved but good stuff will always emerge over typewriter style of playing, just give it time and it will weed itself out.

AndrewUlle

Chris Martin wrote: »

Tread carefully Andrew; I dared to suggest something similar some time ago and got shot down in flames by the great and good on here.

I was very hesitant to post this; I knew it wouldn't come off the way I meant. I'd better stop before I put my foot in my mouth any further.

Lango-Django

Interesting thread, and I'm going to add my two cents, which nobody need accept... As Christopher Hitchens once said, "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

But anyway, here goes...

Part one

Linguistics students talk of something called "first language interference" when learning a second, third or fourth language.

So North Americans may study French, for example, and learn to speak fairly fluently, but there is always going to be a trace of their original language in the sound of the vowels, the phrasing, etc.

I'd say the same thing applies to music, which is another sort of 'language'.

Most of us in North America come to gypsy jazz from some other background, from bluegrass to heavy metal to mainstream jazz, etc, and that is going to influence our playing for better or worse...

I imagine that part is fairly non-controversial?

Part two--- perhaps more controversial.

When I start creating my own phrases on the guitar, I often find that little subconscious phrases pop into my head along with the music, and these are always in English. Of course, I'm not consciously trying to do this, but it happens by itself whether I want it to or not!

And I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens to other jazz guitarists all around the world.

So would it be surprising if the guy who speaks Sinti or French finds different little phrases popping into their head along with the music which they are creating?

And would it be surprising if their phrases are going to have a different 'feel' from that of a native English speaker?

And then there's the matter of rhythm... I remember one workshop I attended at DiJ where the North Americans unanimously insisted that "Only squares clap on beats one and three" while the Europeans unanimously insisted that "Only squares clap on beats two and four".

Part three--- perhaps even more controversial

There is no such thing as the "best" flavour of ice cream, and there is no such thing as the "best" way to play gypsy jazz.

Russell Letson

I've posted something like this before, but this thread makes it relevant again: Every style or school or tradition has a center (or several) and a periphery, and the periphery isn't a thin line but a fuzzy borderland. Add to that spatial metaphor a temporal dimension--a history--and it's easy to see how complicated it can be to locate what is "authentic." And the style we call "gypsy jazz" of "hot club music" or whatever is itself related to several other traditions (notably American jazz and pop and musette) which have their own center-periphery-history shapes.

I've long been interested in three non-USian families of roots music that have attracted the attention of players and audiences from outside their originating cultures: klezmer, Hawaiian (especially slack-key guitar), and gypsy-jazz*. All three have attracted "outside" audiences and practitioners, which inevitably lead to sets of questions about authenticity, authority, cultural appropriation, and preservation. What is "real X"? Who can play X? What "outside-X" influences affect purity or authenticity? Is exposure to the larger cultural world changing X into something else? And so on.

Even within a strongly rooted tradition there are forces that make for change--unless the tradition is somehow inclined to reject outside influences, for example, liturgical or ritual music. But otherwise, musics change, because musicians listen to other musicians and musicians steal shamelessly and constantly.

At least, some do. There are always players who remain solidly in the stylistic/historical center and are dedicated to playing in "the real old style," as slack-key player Ray Kane used to say. And Ray Kane was famously seen as a modernizer by Auntie Alice Nāmakelua, who taught the real real old style (from the 1890s) to generations of youngsters, including the very modern Keola Beamer. In gypsy jazz, look at the Ferré brothers, whose GJ roots are impeccable, and whose playing is also rooted in classical-conservatory (Boulou) and flamenco (Elios) as well as mainstream jazz.

* Notice that all three are already syncretic, the results of converging sets of musical traditions. In North America, look at bluegrass or jazz itself. None o this stuff is chemically pure.