The 3 Things Most Gypsy Jazz Rhythm Players Get Wrong. With Benji Winterstein

Dario Napoli

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

If you're curious about "la pompe" or are struggling to feel confident when playing rhythm, this one's for you😉

Dario

Russell Letson

Most of this echoes what I heard from my workshop instructors in non-GJ swing playing decades ago. Or a lot of non-jazz ensemble playing, for that matter, particularly the notion that if you can't hear the soloist or vocalist over your own playing, you're playing too loud.

Buco

It's funny how something seemingly so simple can take years to get right.

Dario Napoli

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/125827#Comment_125827

Yes, there are definitely many common denominators with many other styles. I'd say in my experience in gypsy jazz the concept of the frequency generated by the chords is particularly important and overlooked, something most people I run into are completely unaware of

Dario Napoli

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/125828#Comment_125828

That's the irony of gypsy jazz, it's so deceptively "simple" and actually most people will never get it quite right and most don't even know what they don't know:)

pdg

I notice some players "lift" their left hand to dampen slightly after every beat, whereas others do that only on beats 1 and 3, actually leaving the hand slightly damped through beats 2 and 4.

Dario Napoli

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/125831#Comment_125831

Yes, I'd say those can be slight preferences, what I believe is important is to never lose touch completely with the strings.

Releasing is one thing, releasing unnecessarily (where I lose contact with the strings) in another and is not ideal in my opinion

AndyW

I’m hearing quite a bit of a difference between Beats 1, 3 and beats 2,4 in Benji’s mid tempo rhythm.

I think he’s whipping through a bit more on 1 and 3.

Ymmv - I’m a clarinet player. 🙄😎

Buco

There's definitely a difference, when he wants to sounds like that. Or make all beats even. But Dario's point was about making sure the volume stays the same whatever you end up doing.

voutoreenie

Personally, I'm not really picky about la pompe rhythm sound so long as the pocket's mostly maintained. But that said, it's good to have versatility between la pompe styles because some players have very particular preferences for what they want to hear and better to have that figured out much as possible ahead of time before trying to adapt to it at a gig. Also, if jamming with new folks, I always try to "fit in" with how the local la pompe sounds because imo it's always better to have homogeneity for a tighter pocket overall without standing out in contrast too much.

On a different note, it's always interesting listening back to Django because the la pompe styles/sounds can vary so much in all those old recordings, especially from Django himself.

Dario Napoli

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/125848#Comment_125848

There are always slight accents but way less in comparison to less experienced players...when you'd hear it side by side it would be way more evident. For whatever reason, lesser experienced players imagine they need to mark accents more than actually necessary