Stéphane Wrembel Quartet at Middle C Jazz

Stéphane Wrembel Quartet
Middle C Jazz
Charlotte, NC
February 22, 2026

French Gypsy jazz guitarist Stephane Wrembel began the show solo, playing selections from Django Reinhardt's Preludes for Solo Guitar. Reinhardt is, of course, the foundational Gypsy jazz guitarist, and Wrembel considers the Preludes to be key to understanding his music. He spent five years learning to play them by listening to Reinhardt's recordings and has published a collection with the music presented in both standard music notation and guitar tablature. Wrembel has a charming stage presence, peppering historical musicology with personal stories. The Preludes were written in a style more like classical guitar music than Gypsy jazz, but they present a vivid picture of Reinhardt's technical skills. "Improvisation No.2" was especially interesting, as it is played fingerstyle rather than with a pick (which was Reinhardt's usual performance method). "Echoes of Spain" showed Spanish influences, much like the music of Impressionist composers he loved (Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel). These pieces were played acoustically, and the beautiful sound reflected Wrembel's technical skills as well as the club's capable sound engineer.

Wrembel slipped a pickup onto his guitar and brought out the rest of the quartet: Spanish rhythm guitarist Quico, double bassist Erik Alvar (who performed on the first Billy Strings EP), and drummer Nick Anderson. The instrumentation suggests that this is not exactly a traditional Gypsy jazz group: usually, there are no drums, and a violin is expected. The next segment was musette accordion music. The tunes were waltzes, composed by Reinhardt as early as age 12. "Valse de Wasso" was a wild, up-tempo finale. The set moved into the jazz section, the archetype created in New Orleans. "Dinah" is a swing song identified with Louis Armstrong and Reinhardt. Their version featured the first of many rounds of solos, a practice that furthered the resemblance to standard jazz performance. It was followed by "Nuages" (Clouds), arguably Reinhardt's most well-known composition, and "Hungaria." 

The guitarist has contributed to the soundtracks of two Woody Allen films as a composer and performer.  "Big Brother" came from Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), while "Bistro Fada" was the theme song for Midnight in Paris ( 2011). Allen clearly hired him to do what he does: both songs were Gypsy jazz, with no trace of compromise for the soundtrack. Wrembel introduced the next segment by saying, "I'm not a singer, but... " as he presented two Serge Gainsbourg songs featuring his vocals. Gainsbourg was a hugely successful Parisian pop singer/songwriter ("we have the same accent"). "La javanaise" (1963) is a waltz. For his first hit, "Le Poinçonneur des Lilas" he wrote about a Paris metro employee who was bored with punching tickets all day. Wrembel committed to just singing on this one. 

After a joke about a regulation forbidding him from drinking whisky onstage (he said he was looking forward to one after the show, and observed that musicians often make poor role models), he introduced "Voyager," a tune inspired by astrophysicist Carl Sagan's stories. It was a sci-fi rock piece reminiscent of "Telstar." The final selection included an arco double bass solo, a drum solo with mallets, and an unaccompanied guitar solo with electronic effects.  It was an excellent feature for the band; mention should also be made of rhythm guitarist Quico, who also contributed some fine solos. Wrembel is an excellent guitarist with a charismatic stage presence and an outstanding band. This is a show likely to appeal to listeners beyond the Gypsy jazz niche.