La Nuit des Gitans - l'Olympia de Paris, 1970

TonyRees

While I am searching through old recordings, I came across this one: La Nuit des Gitans - l'Olympia de Paris, 1970. It seems to originally have been a French radio (or possibly TV) broadcast, maybe later issued on LP (not sure); my copy came on a home-burnt CD received in trade for something or other... Tracks are as follows (any further info appreciated)...

La Nuit de Gitans - à l'Olympia de Paris, 1970

(Broadcast French Radio or Television; off homemade CD copy; possibly issued on LP, details not traced)

1-2. Maurice Ferret, solo guitar; Babagne Pouville, guitar: I love you / Melancholy baby

3-4. René Mailhes, solo guitar; G. Arvenitez, piano; Sammy, bass: Someone to watch over me / Blues

5-6. Matelo Ferret, solo guitar: The man I love / How high the moon

7-8. Stéphane Gappelly, violin; Marc Hemmler, piano: Ballade [=Londonderry Air] / I got rhythm

9-10. Jacques Montagne, solo guitar; Ch. Garcia, guitar; Giraud, drumns; Sammy, bass: Les feuilles mortes / Canone

11-12. Chellin [Chaillain] Ferret, solo guitar; Valia Belinsky, piano: Mélodies tsiganes / Deux guitares

13-14. Babik Reinhardt, solo guitar + others: Nuages / Minor swing

15-16. "King Baro" Ferret, solo guitar + others: Choti; Minch valse.

Nuit-de-Gitans 1-13.mp3

Nuit-de-Gitans 14-16.mp3

The recording does not seem to be completely unknown since a couple of tracks have been uploaded to youtube by separate persons, but I have not been able to discover any further details - however the music is good (and historic) and there are some pretty rare artists represented...

Enjoy - Tony

TonyRees

Thanks Ted... over on youtube someone mentions that they think they remember seeing this on French TV at the time, but that is pretty vague and possibly mistaken... any idea of the source of the recording that I have in my holdings? Cheers - Tony

spatzo

Nuit des Gitans.JPG

Here's another advertising poster, if I remember well Maurice Ferret spoke of two nights, I have a tape where he spokes of those concerts among other things

billyshakes

It looks like Ted G's posts have been removed from here....adding back the handbill that he had posted about this concert. I cropped the photo for use as an iTunes image.

spatzo

There's a site in France where you can search to watch or hear what has been transmitted in television in past years, but actually there is nothing on that argument unfortunately

I don't know if everything has been digitalized yet but probably not

The site address is : https://www.ina.fr/recherche

You can find Matelo, Maurice Ferret, Grappelli, Eugène Vees, etc... https://madelen.ina.fr/programme/hommage-a-django-reinhardt

But that not free

mac63000

Ina.fr is an amazing resource, not just limited to music either. I definitely second that.

ChrisMartin

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/102561#Comment_102561

Well there was an interesting group of people. I have long been a fan of both camps represented there, the Manouche and Sinti Django followers and the Flamenco influenced gypsies from the south sometimes referred to (by themselves too) as Gitanos. Since the 1960s I remember as a little Beatles fan that Manitas de Plata used to appear on British TV and even then I was fascinated by this wild looking man playing exotic music. I later learned more, and often travelled in southern France and Spain in search of more the same.

Manitas de Plata was one of the Baliardo clan. Jose Reyes is also listed on that bill, he was the greatest singer of the style and toured with Manitas for along time; I never saw Jose but his sons Nicolas, Paul, François 'Canut' and Patchai were of course later better known as the Gypsy Kings, that group also featuring various Baliardo cousins including guitarist Tonino.

I was never lucky enough to catch Jose in person but when the Gypsy Kings first found fame after changing their name from Los Reyes they used to host a gipsy music festival which they called 'Mosaique' in the Provençal area. One year, around 1990 I think, it was at Nimes and there were many events including the Gypsy Kings themselves headlining in the fantastic Roman arena in the centre of town. Other acts there included a big, loud Hungarian orchestra with more than one cymbalum and Toumani Diabate the kora player from Mali, but more interesting was what went on around the streets. Babik Reinhardt had me and about thirty other people entranced when he played on a small stage in the park across the road from the arena. But the real fun started after midnight, after all of the advertised shows were over, and various Reyes and Baliardos, including the Gypsy Kings themselves, played for their own family and friends on a makeshift stage in a small square in the backstreets of town. That party went on until dawn, and fuelled by a seemingly endless supply of Pastis for a few Francs a shot I had the time of my life.

But the point of this tale is that although the various gipsy clans do identify as different, and from different roots, they obviously can enjoy each other's company and music.

Later in the 1990s I was staying near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence as I was down for the Monaco Grand Prix race which often coincided with the annual gipsy pilgrimage to Ste Marie de la Mer and while I was not keen to get into the crowds in Ste Marie I did notice a small poster in the window of Madison Music, a record shop I often visited in Arles that specialised in all things 'gipsy'. The poster said Manitas de Plata was playing in what appeared to be some remote location in the Camargue later that week. Armed with a local map driving around the lanes off the road to Ste Marie I found the place, what I thought was a dusty old little bullring (but it turned out to be just a circular pen for training horses I think) and along with only a couple of hundred others, mostly gipsies of course, I sat on a fence and witnessed a couple of hours of magic from the now old and white-haired Manitas. He had supposedly by then retired with rumours of arthritis restricting his abilities but there was nothing wrong with his playing that night.

Happy days !

The other poster Spatzo added also features includes Antoine Ciosi a Corsican singer who had recorded with Matelot Ferret but I had never heard of King Baro; I guessed this was Baro Ferret as Baro is the Roma word for King, but I never knew he used that title as a stage name........

billyshakes

I had never heard of King Baro; I guessed this was Baro Ferret as Baro is the Roma word for King, but I never knew he used that title as a stage name........

I think the original post said they tried to "Spanish-ify" some of the names (i.e. Morice et Jivaros instead of Maurice Ferret & Julian Pouville) so perhaps that is why they called him King Baro (though El Rey Baro might have been more appropriate in that case?)