Fapy unleashed

mr arp

stubla wrote:

I do agree that Django was influenced early on by the musette accordion style--i think his love of long triplet passages comes direct from that as they are relatively rare in early Jazz
Stu

Brilliant!! I forgot about the long triplet passages which are definitely part and parcel of the musette accordion style (and polka's for that matter). You certainly do not hear this element in the early Hot Fives or Sevens. Straight from the accordion along with the arpeggios and chromatic runs. It's a fascinating exercise to sort all this out in such detail. Nicely done!

It actually just occurred to me that eastern european cimbalom playing also incorporates a lot of long triplet passages as well. I know that the gypsies that I've met in Czech Republic and Hungary absolutely love the cimbalom to this day (it's always been popular with the gypsies of this region). Angelo Debarre is a huge fan as well (can't think of the name of his favorite player at the moment though...). I believe Django played Romani folk music with his clan as a kid per my read of Mike Zwerin's book, La Tristesse de St. Louis so I'm guessing that the cimbalom may have been part of his musical melange when growing up. This, if true, could be a good example of a more "pure" gypsy musical influence in his playing, could it not? I suppose this would presume that the cimbalom can be considered to be primarily a gypsy folk instrument (that's where I'm drawing the highly debatable word "pure" from)....I'm honestly not certain and I'm not a musicologist. Hope somebody with more knowledge on this will chime in and enlighten.

frater

mr arp wrote:

Angelo Debarre is a huge fan as well (can't think of the name of his favorite player at the moment though

Giani Lincan perhaps? He's a genius...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGO7nSWAp_U

mr arp

frater wrote:

mr arp wrote:

Angelo Debarre is a huge fan as well (can't think of the name of his favorite player at the moment though

Giani Lincan perhaps? He's a genius...

I believe it was Toni Lordache. I should have characterized him as being one of Angelo's favorites as there may be more. Giani Lincan is amazing, wonderful clip, thank you.

Cuimean

I believe it's spelled "Iordache", capital "i".

I'd guess that any cymbalom virtuosos that Django may have heard, Gypsy or otherwise, would have been playing Hungarian or Romanian repertoire, so I doubt that its influence could be considered evidence of a more pure Gypsy influence on his playing. It's an interesting theory, though, since instruments related to the cymbalom can be found all along the Romany trail, from India to Germany.

scot

Django's family apparently traveled mostly in eastern France, not in Eastern Europe. And we do know what kind of music was popular in provincial France in those days: light classical and operettas (Franz Lehar etc), popular songs from Paris, waltzes and mazurkas,that kind of thing. This is covered in Francois Gasnault's "Guingettes et Lorettes" and other books, too. There isn't any real evidence, or musical evidence either for that matter, to suggest that Django ever played anything like cymbalum music. Like other gypsy musicians of the times, the Reinhardt clan surely played what was popular with their audience - after all, that's the only way to make money playing music. There probably was very little eastern folk music in France/Paris before the great Russian immigration following the Bolshevik revolution and the civil war that followed that. Matelot Ferret did play with cymbalum players in the Russian cabarets starting in his teens - he went on to become the first-call guitarist in those legendary places and played for years with the Codolban brothers. Later he made his famous recording "Tzigansksia" with cymbalum player Michel Villach. Matelot was Django's contemporary but he did not sound remotely like him. The eastern influence was nearly always present in Matelot's playing. He could sort of make a guitar sound like a cymbalum, he had that kind of tone and phrasing when he played Eastern tunes - I have some live recordings of him playing serbian folksongs at home and you can really hear it. Django certainly could have played that kind of music as it's not that difficult, but I don't think he ever did. Alain Antoinetto wrote a lengthy article on this subject in the Etudes Tsiganes quarterly revue in 1994; Django's name isn't mentioned.

You'd have to think that Django's primary influences were the kinds of music he was exposed to first as the family traveled in the low countries, along the Rhone river and then in Paris where his mother settled when he was what - 10 or 11 years old? And we know pretty accurately what that music was. Django's great gift - one of his gifts anyway - was his ability to take what he heard around him and make something new and great out of it. And this was something he continued to do all his life. I'm convinced that this is what Matelot meant in the famous quote from earlier in this thread.

stubla

Yes i agree the cymbalom inflience is apparent in Matelots playing and also in Boulous work as well--listen to Michto Pelo off the Pour Django cd and you really hear Boulou doing this---for me the absolute master of cymbalom imitation on guitar was the incredible russian seven string guitarist Serge Orehkov.Heres a clip---check out what he does at about 2mins 15 secs in--phew!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coVTxoswEKQ


Stu

Elliot

Stubla, I'm not sure how you arrive at the designation of 'cymbalom imitator', I only see a guy playing Famenco/Classical music using Flamenco technique on a Flamenco guitar - I guess I'd have to compare them closer.

Whether cymbalom, accordion, horns, Gitane cigarettes or Parisian wine, I really believe that while the sociological approach provides clues as to an artist's means it degrades quickly and in the end it all comes down to esthetics. If this were not the case then we wouldn't be faced with Gypsies who think Django was a Jazz guy and American Jazz guys having regarded Django as Old World. Also, if there is any instrument that influenced Django and Gypsy/European music as a whole, although perhaps not directly in Django's day I would speculate that foremost it would be Harp, the original source for the arpeggio approach. There were thousands of troubador harp players all over Europe for centuries before the other instruments took over, yet nobody mentions it, ever (except for my Harp instructor). Fapy does a beautiful harp 'solo' on guitar on The Folks That Live On The Hill.

And listen, I'm prepared to acknowledge anything as far as discussion is concerned, but not arbitrary efforts to undercut me because I dare to venture an opinion the Djangobooks status quo doesn't like and am trying to assess where Django's strengths really lay so we might draw from them. (Really, just finding 20 retakes out of 650 or a 3% exception is meaningless and pedantic, and no big surprise since I have the complete Integral set too). I know it is hard to discuss esthetics but for anyone wants to study art as a creative activity and not waste time jumping down people's throats who are trying to approach Django's music from a different perspective, I can at least recommend Art As Experience by John Dewey which can be pretty much applied universally to any Art, and which can provide a background for these types of discussions.

So let me get back to my default position, which is basically 'shut up and play yer guitar' - and fly my kite! Today's a perfect day!

scot

That tune is called "Ekhali Tsigane" ("The Gypsies Were Traveling")and is basically the same tune as "Berusovie" on "Tziganskaia". I played that tune hundreds of times when I was playing with Vadim Kolpakov, another extraordinary Russian 7-string player, and never got tired of it, it was such a pleasure and a privilege to hear Vadim play and to be part of that. Vadim is incredible, but even he admits that Orekhov had no peer. His version of "Vengerka" ("Two Guitars")is equally mind-boggling - really everything Orekhov recorded is inspiring.

Orekhov isn't playing a flamenco guitar, it's a unique Russian 7-string guitar tuned to an open G chord. I don't know anything about flamenco guitar or technique, but this kind of guitar playing has been around since at least the mid-19th century and the style and much of the repertoire were for a long time unique to the Russian Roma. Though Orekhov wasn't Roma, he originally learned from Roma guitarists.

There was a German Gypsy group around in the 70s that actually used a pedal harp, I have video somewhere...

Teddy Dupont

I suggested earlier that the pressure on him to play in Germany was quite probably a major factor in Django's decision to try to escape from France. This is a Charles Delaunay translation of what Django said when asked "How did the Germans treat you?". -

"They asked me to play in Berlin, but I quoted an impossible fee, which they refused to pay. When they grew more insistent and hinted at compulsion, I disappeared and wandered the French countryside carrying only my guitar. I returned to Paris months later" .

He mentions no other pressures put on him by the Germans. He also implies that he was better able than others to get certain items during the war quite possibly through Baro Ferret's blackmarket activities.

frater

scot wrote:

Vadim is incredible, but even he admits that Orekhov had no peer. His version of "Vengerka" ("Two Guitars")is equally mind-boggling - really everything Orekhov recorded is inspiring.

Yes, Orekhov version might be mind-boggling but nothing can match this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns-IP_Y8_3U

As long as Russian Guitar players are concerned, Yul is the Man!

P.S.
Why this thread reminds me more and more of this?

http://maxxwolf.tripod.com/woody.html