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Does Romane get short-changed?

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  • ChrisMartinChrisMartin Shellharbour NSW Australia✭✭ Di Mauro x2, Petrarca, Genovesi, Burns, Kremona Zornitsa & Paul Beuscher resonator.
    Posts: 959

    Olivier did recently admit that his solos are planned and rehearsed, so maybe with Romane doing similar one has to wonder who else? I am fine with that myself, not that I am up to playing in public anyway, but for what I can do I can not get far if left to improvising, but given time and practice I can work something out that fits which then becomes my 'solo' for any given tune. Anyone else doing that?

    By the way, back to the original question; I first saw Romane in the grounds behind an Oxfordshire pub (England) back in the 1990s at one of the Ian Cruikshank Gypsy Jazz festivals and he was a nice approachable, patient man happy to autograph the CDs I bought and I have been a fan ever since.

    TwangvanmalmsteenBillDaCostaWilliamsBones
  • Teddy DupontTeddy Dupont Deity
    edited July 2020 Posts: 1,257
  • Lango-DjangoLango-Django Niagara-On-The-Lake, ONModerator
    Posts: 1,854

    Is his mom available to play solos for, um, other people?

    ...asking for a friend...

    Buco
    Paul Cezanne: "I could paint for a thousand years without stopping and I would still feel as though I knew nothing."

    Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."

    Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
  • edited August 2022 Posts: 4,730

    I don't know if it's relevant but things might have seemed differently in 2005 than today.

    He is as successful as any contemporary GJ artists and more so than many. Obviously he is behind his own success, he built it. How he did it I have no idea but he's obviously very hard working person. People who's opinions I trust are saying he's actually a nice guy, that's all I need to hear.

    I also heard these bizarre anecdotes, blood transfusion one of them. Yeah it is bizarre but sometimes very successful people do things over the top, have that larger than life attitude (whatever that means, I just hear it being used in similar cases...). Who knows, maybe it was a result of all night jam around the fire, lots of drinking and they just felt a strong connection at the time and both wanted to do it. Everyone has done out of character stuff with enough alcohol in their system. Also people who have that kind of hunger to succeed will say things only because they want to stir things around and make themselves a center of a spotlight.

    I'm neither a fan or critical. I listened to some of his stuff and it's good but it didn't click with me to get into a heavy listening rotation.

    And I'm pretty sure of one thing, Romane couldn't care less about anyone's opinion.

    Twang
    Every note wants to go somewhere-Kurt Rosenwinkel
  • TwangTwang New
    Posts: 410

    Lango-Django  Niagara-On-The-Lake, ONModerator

    4:58PM  Posts: 1,415

    Is his mom available to play solos for, um, other people?

    ...asking for a friend...


    I ‘m afraid she’s all booked up at the moment .....er for a friend of mine

  • MichaelHorowitzMichaelHorowitz SeattleAdministrator
    Posts: 6,152

    I've always felt Romane's biggest contribution has been in the realm of arranging, composing, and producing. The vast majority of Gypsy recordings feature pretty standard arrangements of tunes, often based on the original Django recordings. Romane incorporates ideas from various modern jazz genres and classical music into in his arrangements. Also, there aren't nearly as many original compositions in this genre as you might expect whereas Romane has many albums that are entirely his own tunes.

    Romane has always had one foot in the more academic music world which makes him a great person to do interesting things with this genre. IMO, the Tchavolo Schmitt album Alors? Voila! that he produced was his crowning achievement. It's a fantastic mix of interesting arrangements and strong playing.

    ChrisMartinBucoBillDaCostaWilliamsrudolfochristadrian
  • Posts: 4,730

    IMO, the Tchavolo Schmitt album Alors? Voila! that he produced was his crowning achievement.

    Didn't know that. Now that, that's one of my favorite albums ever. That is gold.

    MichaelHorowitzrudolfochrist
    Every note wants to go somewhere-Kurt Rosenwinkel
  • bbwood_98bbwood_98 Brooklyn, NyProdigy Vladimir music! Les Effes. . Its the best!
    Posts: 666

    Also, Lets be frank - Romane is a nice guy who's been playing with Gypsy players for very much of his career, and when I've seen them together all seems totally ok. I think his legacy will be as part of the resurgence in the 90s and as an amazing educator. He was very nice to me the first time I tried to sit in at Puces (years ago) and played how high the moon with me in spite of the 7 string guitar I played back then! The whole band was great in Brooklyn last year after Django in June, really sweet and understanding, and just played super well. Also the solos were different from the set they played at Django In June (though with very common vocabulary of melodic ideas).

    Wm - I'd love to see that vid too!

    B

    Buco
  • jonpowljonpowl Hercules, CA✭✭✭ Dupont MD-100, Altamira M01F
    Posts: 705

    It appears that Romane has a successful music academy in Paris. There are some nice players in the jams, but Romane seems to stand out.

    Jams:

    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUyH3mes5q3UGKwIzuf4VKw

    Buco
  • spatzospatzo Virtuoso
    edited July 2020 Posts: 768

    In so many years, and I know Romane for a very long time now, I never have heard Romane saying that he was a gypsy or had gypsies origins, I mean what a silly idea to affirm that : his father was from French Bretagne and his mother was italian. I mean absolutely never would he claim such a stupid thing. Believe me, Romane is way up over those childish behavings and needs no "ethnic help" to be recognized as a great musician and composer. He might have said : "we can all play the way Django did and the gypsies do today" and he really demonstrated that he was true showing clearly that he had "catched" the "secrets" of those improvisations and understood how to play in that manner. It was in early times when no other gadjo even knew where could be the begining of "gypsy jazz".

    Please give us the references of Mandino's interview.

    Sorry to be untolerant to free and offending affirmations and to be irritated by pseudo psychiatric analysis

    Peace and love!

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