Pfeuh's interview

Yann

Pfeuh is a good musician from Manoucheries, who also happens to be a nice person, with some interesting things to say:

http://www.serendipity-band.com/misc/manouche/interview/pfeuh-en.htm

Stackabones

Fascinating interview.

I'm curious about "Gadjo Jazz" ... I clicked the link, but my French is sublimely simple and I don't think I understood much.

Aren't we all gadjo?

Yann

Stackabones,

It's my understanding that "Gadjo Jazz is like Gypsy jazz, but less good". Funny enough, I had a similar concept with my Serendipity band, we called it "Jazzabilly, jazz but less good"! Ideas in the air...

Elliot

Musicologists, take note!

Joli Gadjo

If true gypsies play gypsy jazz... most of us, non-gypsies = gadji (notice that japanese sometimes call foreigner Gaijin, same with goys vs. jews) will play... well gadjo jazz !!
It's just a joke on words to say we're trying to play gypsy jazz but since we're not so good or will never have as much heart playing it as a real gypsy, at least we can say we play gadjo jazz !!!

Stackabones

Ahhh ... got it!

I'm in Texas and we never play anything straight: Tex-Mex food, Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, Lake Texoma (Texas-Oklahoma), Texarkana (Texas-Arkansas).

Our blues ain't Delta, Chicago, Piedmont, or Kansas City -- it's Texas Blues. Our swing is Western Swing (aka Texas Swing) and not that east coast "big band" stuff (they never had fiddles or steel). The shuffle was originally called the "Texas Shuffle".

Not sure what we'd call gypsy jazz down here. Texas + Gadjo = Tajo? Texajdo Swing? I guess it really doesn't matter so long as it swings.

8)

Joli Gadjo

Right ! It's just that the name of the style is also the name of their ethnicity... But you know, as Romane (a gadjo btw) mentioned on the "Gypsy guitar masters" documentary, gypsy jazz doesn't exist, it's just jazz...

Klezmorim

Stackabones wrote:

Our swing is Western Swing (aka Texas Swing) and not that east coast "big band" stuff (they never had fiddles or steel).
8)

Er, um, well uh, actually... Texas native Johnny Gimble insists that it should be called "Texas Swing," as "Western Swing" is a dance-style. 8)


As to this musical name-calling... old-schoolers used to say that only African-American musicians could properly be said to play "jazz." I read once that "Bebop" was an effort in the 1940s by "musicians of color" to establish a unique sound that the "white boys" couldn't imitate. Silly silly. Great music has a universal beauty, regardless of origin.

Thanks to efforts like "Selmer 607," I'm happy to see that beautiful music is still being made. With all of the Britneys, Snoops, Madonnas, et al. out there, I was beginning to worry....

Stackabones

Klezmorim wrote:

Er, um, well uh, actually... Texas native Johnny Gimble insists that it should be called "Texas Swing," as "Western Swing" is a dance-style. 8)

Texas native Stackabones agrees and stands corrected!