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Today's Birthdays
DFNW - well, how was it?
Tele295
San Buenaventura (Latcho Drom), CA✭✭✭ Gitane DG300, D500
Go ahead, make me jealous. I just couldn't get away. Maybe next year.
I'd love to hear about it, though. High points? Good memories? Pictures?
I'd love to hear about it, though. High points? Good memories? Pictures?
Jill Martini Soiree - Gypsy Swing & Cocktail Jazz
http://www.jillmartinisoiree.com
http://www.jillmartinisoiree.com
Comments
- The best Djangofest so far IMO. Crowds appeared larger in spite of the economy and most of the concerts are now using the larger Middle School auditorium. Not as intimate - but still OK.
- Romane and his son were headliners on Saturday and brought the house down. Incredible authentic gypsy playing. Opening for them was Van Django from Vancouver - one of the tightest and best arranged (and very entertaining) groups in this genre. They did some unusual tunes arranged "gypsy style" including A Day in the Life (Beatles) and closed with "Smoke on the Caravan" featuring the famous Deep Purple riff. Get their CD - worth hearing.
- Stephan Wremble did his Indian influenced gypsy stuff which included a sitar sounding drone machine on a couple of tunes. He keeps getting better and better. His percussionist was in top form and his whole group was very tight and exciting to watch.
- Weather was PERFECT and the jamming scene was terrific. Players are getting better overall. Didn't see as many Nolan gig books in use meaning most guys are really learning more tunes.
My only regret was not staying longer. Sunday night there was a guitar shoot out with many of the players from previous performances. Anybody have an update on how that went down? I suspect that Richard Manetti, Romane's young son, made a significant impression on everyone. He smoked Saturday's performance.
-meeting up with old and new friends and catching up on our annual “mira familia” reunion!
-Michael Horowitz’s Djangomatics did a fine show and pulled out a couple of fine waltzes, especially “La Bikina”;
-Denis Chang gave a solid performance, supported by Ivan Pena on rhythm and lead guitar, who gets better and better with each passing year; also picked up Denis’s latest CD – which starts off with a killer version of Flech d’Or and contains a beautiful version of Moskovskie Okna
-Stephane Wrembel’s show on Wed eve was fantastic – I particularly enjoy his playing and control of the music with differing tempos and eastern inflexion that he adds to this music; I picked up his latest CD which is continuation of themes from his Barbes/Brooklyn CD…look forward to listening to it in detail;
-Mango Fan Django –Archtop Eddy’s band gave a brilliant fun performance; performing originals and some lesser played Stochelo Rosenberg and
Biel Ballestier covers; AE knows how to entertain and gave one of the more entertaining shows to grace the WICA stage.
-Gonzalo and his band gave a top notch show on Thursday eve; was great to see him with his quartet; I picked up his instructional book one as well as his EP Djangophonic.
-Friday evening saw Hot Club of Detroit do a helluva great show – I’d not heard them before and was pleasantly surprised by the high quality of the playing all round – the interplay between the accordion and saxophone was uplifting! I hope they come down to Portland sometime;
-Zaiti Ensemble were superb – I’d highly anticipated seeing the great Adrien Moignard, having listened to their CD and watched numerous youtube clips this past year, their show was sadly spoiled by poor sound – they and the Holo guitars they played deserved top quality sound; but regardless Adrien played great, closing out the show with a blistering version of “Impromptu!”
-Saturday saw one of the great DFNW shows of all time with Romane & Richard Manetti, his son. Incredible rapport between them, his son Richard, was just itching to playing and couldn’t wait to solo, with fun and high energy and great improvisation. Richard played a Busato, which was the best sounding guitar I've heard played at DFNW in a show!
A truly classic show, one that I will cherish having seen.
-I had to leave at Sunday lunch time, so unfortunately missed the Sunday pm shows, so will leave that to others to report back on. But another great year, and the weather was perfect for plenty of jamming outdoors. I’ll add some photos soon. ‘Til next year!….Cheers, Phil
Concerning the sound quality, I thought the tone of several players using Schertlers and soundhole mics sounded a little thin; Romane and son used stand-alone microphones, and sounded amazing.
Interestingly I thought the sound at the Sunday night show was better. At the start of the show Nick L. thanked Romane for his help with the sound system, and when the show started, each player was seated in front of a mic!
Greg Gunter bought 9 raffle tickets and won it; someone I know bought 30!
1. Workshops - I took Stephane Wrembel's morning session, and enjoyed it very much. He was definitely just waking up, but used a question and answer format working through each person. A lot of valuable insights, most notably to be disciplined with time, time signature, and tone.
Then I took Gonzalo's session. His was much more technical, and really dug into the theory of working a line through every key up and down the fretboard as well as understanding the discipline of the pompe, etc.
Since these were the 3rd and 4th guitar workshops I've ever attended, I was still impressed with everything.
Comparing to last year - I took Denis Chang and Sebastien Giniaux last year, and I have to say Denis is still the best.
2. People - The groups in each workshop were great. There was nobody grabbing all the attention, and that makes the day.
3. The afternoon concert - it was in the Theatre, which only holds ~275 people. Really very intimate, IMO.
The first act was Hot Club Sandwich, and they really put on a great opener. Lots of humor and some pretty good licks, too. While there was a lot of gypsy jazz influence to the music, it definitely didn't sit as Django music, more django-influence.
Then we had Howard Alden, with Bria Skonberg. What can I say...he opened with some solo pieces blended into a medlet...someone to watch over me and? Then, he got rolling with the bassist Shannon Wade and rythym player Paul Brady from Hot Club of Detroit - they were great.
When Bria Skonberg came out, we got treated to a really interesting duet between the guitar and trumpet, with some really strong call and reply types of lines. Loved it!
Vendors - Djangobooks were there, but I was disappointed with your display - only because I had really wanted to take some time with a few guitars to see what I really want in my own, and all your had were your books and disks. Oh well...next time. By the way, I bought Unaccompanied Django, the Bireli at Vienne DVD, and a bag of Big City picks. No disappointment with those <grin>.
OVERALL - This was my second Djangofest. For me, it didn't have the sheer power in the workshops and concert that I felt last year. But, last year I saw Van Django, and John Jorgenson in the middle school. You just can't compare the atmosphere. I'm already making plans to do at least 2 days next year, just to see the evening jams and more concerts.
Ian
Hi Ian...earlier we had the guitars set up on a side table but we had to move them to make room for Shelley. Later that day we moved to the much bigger space at the middle school so we had the guitars there. Sorry, you just happened to be there during a time when there wasn't space for them.
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hey Phil, Adriens sound on Sunday night was fantastic. I agree that Adriens sound on Saturday was "muted" and that was tough to watch. Adrien kept getting up to turn the dials on his AER and it was as if the sound guy didn't even notice he was doing that because there was no change at all in the sound for the first 30 minutes. Why did it take 30+ minutes for the sound engineer to turn up a mic volume? Was there something about the Hot Club of Detroits setup that made it hard for the sound guy to track the mic for Ensemble Zaiti? The show was still awesome though but I was near the front row and that helped.
Altogether I really had a nice time at all the shows. I think the Edgecliff jam gets too large with 10-16 people in it. You cant hear anything and the good players dont want to participate in it. I think the restaurant would do much better by creating 3 smaller 3-5 person jam locations in the restaurant (instead of 1 large one) by moving tables around and creating designated areas. If it was that way then the good players might want to participate and things would be more interesting and the restaurant would make more money.
We had the same problem at WICA with the Djangomatics show....the sound guys had the guitars way, way down so it was hard to hear them. I realized halfway through the set he had shut the monitors off....duh?!
It was fun watching Romane work with the sound guys....he totally takes control of the situation and micromanages the whole thing. He went through and played every instrument himself, including the bass, to make sure it was perfect.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the uber jams either. Songs take 20 mins each and everyone gets bored. They should have a house rhythm section and then rotate in lead players 2 or 3 at a time. That keeps it musical and fun...that's how we do the jam in Seattle every Monday.
Wow - Ensemble Zaiti is coming to the Chicago Fest, spearheaded by my teacher, Alfonso Ponticelli and his Swing Gitan, can't wait.
Adrien is teaching a workshop this Saturday for 2 hours, and the rest of the week (and into next), tons of playing by Swing Gitan, Ensemble Zaiti, Gipsy Rhythm Project and others.
The Festival info is here:
http://www.swinggitan.com/show/
So many nights I'm looking forward to...Swing Gitan will do a Hot Club Quintet instrumentation (3 guitars, contrabass, violin) on Wednesday, Oct. 7; what my life calls a "love in" of flamenco and gypsy jazz on Friday, October 9, the jam at Galaxie this Thursday.
The Adrien Moignard workshop is taking place at Old Town School of Folk Music. From the Old Town site, there are lots of seats left, so if interested, FYI. The workshop info is here:
http://www.oldtownschool.org/classes/register/workshops.php?type=Workshop
Really sorry I missed DFNW, hope to go next year. Hope to see you in Chicago!
pas encore, j'erre toujours.
I didn't see Sunday night, but what she did with Adrien and Matthieu Friday night late night was awesome. They invited her then, after that jam... I've got some video I might put up (Body & Soul, Taking the A Train & a couple more).
Here are some of my random pics from the event.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=315816&id=695005397&l=81a2c697e7
I love Zaiti, and I love Hot Club Sandwich. HCS makes me want to dance!!! I'm glad I got to see Matthieu and Adrien up close, given how the sound Friday was. I don't really like that middle school venue, but I'll tolerate it to see people like we had this year (or the Rosenbergs, etc.)
Overall, I had a great weekend