Pourquoi La Pompe?

Captain Swing

This may be a strange question, but how come everyone keeps referring to rhythm guitar as La Pompe? I'd never heard this phrase before until i found this board.
Obviously it's French for 'pump', but i've never heard it used it in the context of gypsy rhythm guitar before. Just wondering how & when this term came to be used?

Captain Swing

Well i think i can deduce from this that there are two possible answers:

No-one has a clue, or No-one gives a shit.

MichaelHorowitz

I honestly don't know who coined this term or when....

Captain Swing

No worries Michael, i was just curious.
Maybe it's an American thing? I've never heard anyone call it that over here.

MichaelHorowitz

No, it's a French thing for sure.

lemanouchecbien

I do not think that is an american thing. I am from France and we always called it La pompe.

Captain Swing

Michael Horowitz wrote:

No, it's a French thing for sure.

Well i didn't mean that it originated in America, as it's a french word, but it's obviously in common use here on this board, which seems to be mostly Americans, & is where i first heard it.
Anyway, it's nothing of great importance. I have just not come across it before, so i just wondered.

lemanouchecbien

In France and on www.Manoucheries.com (french forum) we always use the term la pompe to talk about rythm in jazz manouche.
You do not use it in the UK ? That's odd !

brandoneon

I've got a French friend (a GJ enthusiast but not a guitarist) who told me that it mimics the motion of operating a hand water pump. Hence, la pompe.

clacos

my guess is that it comes from the regularity of the sound, quite like the one of a mechanical device (train also comes to mind, specially when there are several bars of the same chord)

I remember vividly a musician friend showing me Sweet Georgia Brown, having me trying to play with him, and then telling me : this rythm is called 'la pompe'.. i didn't blink an eye, the term was appropriate and slightly funny, describes - with a bit of light irony - the mechanical character of the sound and of our movements on the guitar. In french it made sense immediately to me.
Some pump water or oil out of the ground, we're pumping groove out of the guitar... or trying, in my case.

Captain Swing

lemanouchecbien wrote:

You do not use it in the UK ? That's odd !

Well maybe some people do, but i'd never heard of it until i found this forum, despite being involved in Gypsy/Jazz for 18yrs.
Perhaps it might be common in London, but i'm from the north. We just call it 'rhythm'.