Gypsy Jazz

In Search of Django Reinhardt and the Soul of Gypsy Swing

Michael Dregni

Follow up to Dregni's defnitive Django Reinhardt biography
Based on first-hand access to the musicians and their commentaries
2010 marks the Django Reinhardt centennial

Gypsy Jazz

In Search of Django Reinhardt and the Soul of Gypsy Swing

Michael Dregni

Description

Of all the styles of jazz to emerge in the twentieth century, none is more passionate, more exhilaratingly up-tempo, or more steeped in an outsider tradition than Gypsy Jazz. And there is no one more qualified to write about Gypsy Jazz than Michael Dregni, author of the acclaimed biography, Django.

A vagabond music, Gypsy Jazz is played today in French Gypsy bars, Romany encampments, on religious pilgrimages—and increasingly on the world's greatest concert stages. Yet its story has never been told, in part because much of its history is undocumented, either in written form or often even in recorded music. Beginning with Django Reinhardt, whose dazzling Gypsy Jazz became the toast of 1930s Paris in the heady days of Josephine Baker, Picasso, and Hemingway, Dregni follows the music as it courses through caravans on the edge of Paris, where today's young French Gypsies learn Gypsy Jazz as a rite of passage, along the Gypsy pilgrimage route to Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer where the Romany play around their campfires, and finally to the new era of international Gypsy stars such as Bireli Lagrene, Boulou Ferre, Dorado Schmitt, and Django's own grandchildren, David Reinhardt and Dallas Baumgartner. Interspersed with Dregni's vivid narrative are the words of the musicians themselves, many of whom have never been interviewed for the American press before, as they describe what the music means to them. Gypsy Jazz also includes a chapter devoted entirely to American Gypsy musicians who remain largely unknown outside their hidden community.

Blending travelogue, detective story, and personal narrative, Gypsy Jazz is music history at its best, capturing the history and culture of this elusive music—and the soul that makes it swing.

Gypsy Jazz

In Search of Django Reinhardt and the Soul of Gypsy Swing

Michael Dregni

Prologue
Chapter 1: The Guitar with a Human Voice; In Search of Django Reinhardt
Chapter 2: The Boy With the Banjo; Into a Zigzag Paradise
Chapter 3: Bals Musette; Music from the Dark Side of the City of Light
Chapter 4: Jazz Modernistique; Revisiting the Babylon of Gypsy Jazz
Chapter 5: Songs of One Thousand and One Nights; Django Reinhardt, Schnuckenack Reinhardt, and Gypsy Jazz Under the Nazis
Chapter 6: Gypsy Bebop; From Dizzy and Bird to Django and the Gibson Generation
Chapter 7: Les Guitares à Moustache; Revolutionary Jazz Guitars for a Jazz Revolution
Chapter 8: Crossroads; On the Road to Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer
Chapter 9: Dynasty ;Les Frères Ferret and their Musical Clan
Chapter 10: La Dernière Valse des Niglos ; Saints and Sinners of the Malha Clan
Chapter 11: Au Son des Guitares; On the Trail of Patotte Bousquet
Chapter 12: The Unsung Master of the Gypsy Waltz; Tracing the Legacy of Tchan Tchou
Chapter 13: The Lost; The Secret History of Lousson Baumgartner and the "Other" Family
Chapter 14: Minstrel; Bamboula Ferret and the Travels of a Romany Troubadour
Chapter 15: Resurrection; The New Elegance of Biréli Lagrène, Stochelo Rosenberg, Angelo Debarre, and Ninine Garcia
Chapter 16: The Music Thieves; Into America with Danny Fender, Johnny Guitar, John Adomono, and Julio Bella Chapter 17: Gypsy Jazz Rap; Syntax and the Search for "Le Meilleur Chemin"
Chapter 18: The Most Dangerous Guitar Lesson; Jamming with David Reinhardt
Epilogue: Latcho Drom - The Long Road
Recommended Listening
Notes
Recommended Reading
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index

Gypsy Jazz

In Search of Django Reinhardt and the Soul of Gypsy Swing

Michael Dregni

Author Information

Michael Dregni, writer, Vintage Guitar Magazine

Michael Dregni is a columnist, reviewer, and feature writer for Vintage Guitar magazine, and author of Django: The Life and Music of a Gypsy Legend (OUP, 2004).

Gypsy Jazz

In Search of Django Reinhardt and the Soul of Gypsy Swing

Michael Dregni

Reviews and Awards

"Dregni's passion for Django Reinhardt and the enduring overlap of gypsy music and jazz leads to a picaresque journey from the US, across modern Europe and back again. The music itself is the wandering hero as Dregni gracefully weaves together historical research, personal insights, and conversations with colorful, music-making characters. Generous, musical storytelling at its best!" - Ashley Kahn, author of A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album, and other jazz titles

"Dregni writes as Django played: lyrical, inventive, engaging and often undeniably brilliant. With Gypsy Jazz he shines light upon the 'holes in history' that have so long obscured this most celebrated yet mysterious arena of Romany music. An astonishing text." - Garth Cartwright, author of Princes Amongst Men: Journeys With Gypsy Musicians

"In this fascinating picaresque adventure into European gipsy culture, Michael Dregni not only discovers much hitherto undocumented information about the background to the great manouche guitarist Django Reinhardt, but also about his musical and social forbears, contemporaries and heirs. Dregni's sparky prose and fervent enthusiasm enliven his search, which always comes back to the music itself, in which he finds, alongside the influence of American jazz, a timeless romani wistfulness, the lingering melancholy of an itinerant people." - Alyn Shipton, Jazz critic of The Times, London, and author of A New History of Jazz