Which instruments do you believe would fit best in Gipsy Jazz? (Punch Trio)

Djacob

Introducing new instruments to the sound of Gypsy jazz is a real challenge because the genre is strongly defined by its traditional lineup. Adding new instruments means carefully balancing innovation with respect for these traditions, ensuring that any new timbre blends well with the established ensemble and doesn’t overpower the acoustic swing that defines the style.

This is one of the other challenges we’ve set ourselves with the Punch Trio: as well as bringing hard bop era tunes into the Gypsy Jazz repertoire, we also want to explore how the style fits with new sounds and with musicians who can adapt to the manouche trio’s unique vibe. On this occasion, we’re joined by the French trombonist Samuel Marthe, who truly understood what we were looking for and delivers a spectacular solo on “This I Dig of You,” one of the iconic hard bop tunes by saxophonist Hank Mobley.

Hope you like it!

https://youtu.be/AB7wtGAIvHc?feature=shared

lucky

Excellent!

I would like to see more percussion in gypsy jazz. Django introduced percussion into the hot club in 1940 and never looked back. I really like the vibe of Stochelo’s soundtrack to the film Django, with driving percussion - I don’t know why it’s such a forbidden thing in modern gypsy jazz, why were so fixated on the 1930s sound even when we’re playing tunes from the 40s and 50s.

billyshakes

@lucky Agreed! I made a comment a month or so back about the drums on the Tchan-Tchou album. The drummer, Christian Garros (who also played with Django), used brushes and blended nicely with the rhythm guitar.

flaco

I think it’s mostly an issue of portability. The same reason you don’t see piano even through Stephane was playing piano from the beginning.

pdg

Wow, that is really great! What a beautiful blend!

pdg

I was once in a group with acoustic archtop, piano, trombone and flute. I liked the "no-reeds" sound and the doubling up of the trombone and flute (an octave apart) on some of the heads.

Trombone is great -- it has fluidity and flexible note pitch, like violin, so it can contrast with the percussive guitars.

Russell Letson

No reason to restrict the GJ lineup to the formula that became fixed after Django's death--hell, even the '34-46 recordings might include sax, harmonica, clarinet, a second violin, or drumkit in the lineup. The key is how well the non-string players fit into the bass+guitar+"other" template. Marthe fits in very well--he's both nimble and lyrical--and "This I Dig of You" is a tune that I can easily imagine Grappelli taking on. (He very well might have, but I'd have to look through my 70-plus-album Grappelli library to be sure.)

You can add just about any sufficiently skillful player to the basic GJ machine and make it work--I suspect that the secret is retaining the guitar as one of the lead voices and keeping the rhythm section's drive idiomatic, and even there I can imagine a lot of wiggle room--Django himself was flirting with bop toward the end, and modern GJ has easily absorbed Latin forms. As with most traditions, there's a center and a periphery, and with jazz those outer boundaries can extend quite a ways out.

paulmcevoy75

I think the Accordina, the mouth blown accordion, is pretty ideal. There was a guy at DIJ who had one and it was really perfect. 2nd choice would be chromatic harmonica.

Neither one is easy to find a player for unfortunately.

I tried chromatic harp for a minute and I was tempted to buy an Accordina but now I'm only allowed to start a new instrument when I don't suck even a little bit.

Russell Letson

The keyboardist in our local jazz group recently added a melodica to some of their numbers, and it really adds a nice texture to some tunes. His is a good Yamaha, and he spent an afternoon tweaking the reeds to get it to play in tune. I enjoy just about every member of the free-reed family, including the unjustly-scorned bagpipes. Even the apocalyptic highland pipes work surprisingly well in the right context, for example, the Tannahill Weavers' lineup.

Rico59

Very nice stuff, and great production quality!👍️ I am entirely in favor of musical ideas that move the Canon forward!

billyshakes

https://djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/122171#Comment_122171

While Ludovic Beier is talented enough to probably sound great with any instrument, he's been playing accordina a lot recently and it is wonderful. I bought this album from him when he came with Dorado in the Fall. If you haven't heard it, you can check it out below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_XURbqwbAs