Joscho Stephan - Nuevo Django

MichaelHorowitz

Joscho Stephan - Nuevo Django

John G

I just got this one. Though it doesn't seem all that "Djangoesque" to me, I really liked the slower tunes. Joscho's need for speed means slower stuff is scarce but his excellent musicality comes through fine. I highly recommend this one.

Dylanlawless1

First listening i didn't like this as much as his debut "Swinging Strings" but after one or two more listens it clicked with me.
I really like how Joscho isn't afraid to allow music to evolve. It's important to retain the important things that GJ has created over the years, however I think some people are scarred to allow too much change, saying that's not how Django would do it. But you have to remember that's exactly what was happening in Django's era. People were not at first impressed at the jazz being improvised and changed, and what Joscho does is no different. Music should evolve and move though keeping alive the most important aspects.

I quote "100 years after Django's birthday, Joscho decided to do an album without songs that Django played or composed (!), in order to produce a new repertoire for the future."
I feel that Stephan has been a little dismissed by people who think that he likes to speed around the fretboard and such, too much. A melody has never been lost, for me, and i think of Joscho's play between phrases to be as natural as Ella Fitzgerald's breathing between the lines of a classic.

Tracks like "Michelle" and "So Rare" are so smooth and clean that they give me goosebumps. Although i think one or maybe two songs could be replaced by something more pleasing, (for myself anyway) I am quiet pleased with my purchase and if i had to choose again i would buy it a second time. (Consider that i am a student and mostly financially intendant, and buying CDs is a luxury.)

It must be hard to have released a masterpiece (in my opinion) that is Swinging Strings and try to keep progressing rather than just stay put and play songs that are going to give the same affect.

My advice (if you're still reading) is to get his first album "Swinging Strings" and you won't be disappointed. Then move onto his new stuff which i think won't appeal to such a diverse group but if you like it, you like it.

Seeing him live recently i can say for certainty that he has used every piece of work that he's done and filtered it, metaphorically, to find his continuously improving sound. Something that makes him special, he learns from many sources not just mastering the Gypsy classics. Similar to the way Bireli or such seems to have. Greater things are still to come from this young player.

steam-powered

I like the fact that this is a "different" sounding album. He's opened up to new ideas and I like this album as much as his first.