DJANGO REINHARDT NY FESTIVAL NOV. 7 - 12

plankity

MinorBlues wrote:

So what did you all think? I was there Friday night at the 8 oclock show. Kruno and that 21 year old violin player (Alexander?) were both pretty sick, I was impressed. I thought the show would be a bit longer though. What's up with Samson playing rhythm most of the time? I think he only had a solo on a song or two.

Sadly, I couldn't attend on Friday night after my car got towed Thursday (lesson learned: never let someone from California park your in NYC) and I didn't get home until 5:30 am Friday!

Sunday was perhaps the best show of all (at least of the six I saw). With Alexandre gone, the format changed dramatically and as well as all the tunes. Dorado and Ludovic still opened the festivities, with Kruno joining in. Ludovic is probably one of the top musicians alive today: his sensitivity when playing the MIDI accordion was beyond parallel, as was his humor!

Samson was really a workhorse: he was on stage from beginning to end, not unlike the drummer in the circus pit, more or less the real MC and ringmaster of tempo. Had he soloed more, I think his head might have exploded! He was playing his new Shoppis D hole and Mr Shoppis was there every night, very friendly and happy to have supplied Samson and Dorado Schmitt with beautiful handmade guitars.

Dorado was in rare form every night, slyly shifting from classic Reinhardt jazz to George Benson-inspired octaves and rapid-fire cymbalon/oud sounds: always perfect and never out-of-place. His wardrobe was toned down a bit on Sunday, wearing a shirt that resembled a menu cover from Chinatown. He played a fiery version of Lady Be Good and a solo (without Alex) fiddle with accompaniment on the Ettore tribute piece.

Farinacci was in attendance as was percussionist Dave Silliman. Jean Paul sat in with the Autumn Leaves vocal as Andreika mentioned above. BTW,

Andreika wrote:

ps... Norman did a great job!

thanks!!! It is always fun to be part of the team. And Pat deserves a ton of thanks, along with Ettore and the staff at Birdland.

Rumors of a Carnegie Hall concert are in the air, so maybe us folks in the Northeast won't have to wait until August for our next fix!

best,
Norman CT/USA

MinorBlues

Nice review. Friday night, Samsons string broke not once, but twice! Good thing kruno jumped in and gave him his guitar both times. So when do you think they will make a DVD of this show? It would be nice to have.

plankity

MinorBlues wrote:

... So when do you think they will make a DVD of this show? It would be nice to have.

Pat's son did a bunch of digital camcorder stuff on several nights (wed, fri and sat; maybe more). I am a little disappointed in the 2005 DVD and spoke with Pat to let her know that:

a) people want to buy "what we just heard" b) most people already own the 2002 NYC CD and c) the personal media player/iPod thing has become so huge that everyone seems to be looking at how they can quickly convert from CD to mp3 without having to rip audio off the DVD as well. So she may be repackaging the audio from 2005 into a new audio CD while trying to produce a 2006 video over the next year.

Sales of the 2005 DVD were a bit off until everything else was gone.

best,
Norman CT/USA