Results for "Stephane Grappelli"

Rez Abbasi: Django-shift

by Karl Ackermann
August 14, 2020

Django Reinhardt's music is so ubiquitous that it's easy to forget his career was relatively brief. The gypsy guitarist/composer had recorded hundreds of 78s and acetates before he died of a stroke in 1953 at age forty-three. On many early sides, he played a six-string banjo-guitar hybrid tuned in the standard tuning of a guitar. Norman ...

Dominic Ingham: Role Models

by Ian Patterson
July 30, 2020

Jazz violinists' role models tend to follow a familiar continuum that runs roughly from Stuff Smith and Stéphane Grappelli to Jean Luc Ponty and Didier Lockwood. British violinist/singer Dominic Ingham, however, paddles his own canoe. With a technique that draws as much from his folk and classical upbringing as it does from jazz, Ingham's idiom is ...

John Scofield: One For Swallow

by Ian Patterson
June 15, 2020

From time to time in his storied career John Scofield will take a look over his shoulder and re-examine some of the music that has fed into his own, personal brand of jazz. The influences are many, for no matter the context that Scofield engineers, his distinctive sound always carries something of the blues, a little ...

Pinball: Pinball

by Bruce Lindsay
May 24, 2020

"Tommy" played a mean pinball, while Brian Protheroe ran out of pale ale when he made his own “Pinball" into a hit record. This Pinball, the debut release from the Australian/French quartet of the same name, has none of the feel of a dingy games arcade, or the odour of pale ale. Instead, it is an ...

Bucky Pizzarelli: Remembering Family Rhythms On The Roads Of New Jersey

by Arthur R George
April 14, 2020

Guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, from 1926 to his passing at age 94 on April 1, lived his entire life in New Jersey, and had said that he couldn't imagine living anywhere else. Forget the turnpike jokes. Remember instead the nearness to jazz in New York, the closeness of family, shared driving in the New Jersey night, the ...

How to Play a Tin Whistle Like Michael Brecker

by Peter Rubie
March 18, 2020

I was talking to a musician friend of mine the other day, asking her how her move from Brooklyn to Forrest Hills was going. She said, “I love it! I love the neighborhood and best of all, musically, I'm not running any more jam sessions at the moment, just doing gigs—and practicing! It's great."

Hot Club of Baltimore

Hot Club of Baltimore performs inspired arrangements of Django Reinhardt repertoire, French Musette and Jazz. Michael Joseph Harris (Ultrafaux Ensemble) is guitarist and founder of the group which consists of a collective of top jazz musicians. Harris is also the founder and artistic director of Charm City Django Jazz Fest, Baltimore's longest running Jazz Festival which happens every Spring. Hot Club of Baltimore boasts a variety of configurations which include the instrumental trio of 2 guitars and bass, the classic quintet with violin, the late 40's "Django in Rome" sessions adding piano, drums, and horns, and the big band sound when Reinhardt performed with Duke Ellington

Stephane Grappelli

Born: January 26, 1908

Stephane Grappelli (originally surname was spelled with a 'Y') would have earned himself a place in Jazz History books if only for his important role in the Quintette of the Hot Club of France, featuring the dazzling virtuosity of Django Reindhart. Grappelli's violin was the perfect foil to Reindhart's guitar in this piano-less group. Fired by Reindhart's tremendous rhythmic powers, Grappelli's contributions to recordings by the Quintette like Lime House Blues, China Boy and It Don't Mean A Thing (all 1935) and Them There Eyes, Three little Words and Swing '39 (these latter three tracks from 1938-39) were admirable in their execution. Occasionally Grappelli would play piano, as when harmonica virtuoso Larry Adler recorded with the group in 1939, the year when Reindhart and Grappelli, violin, recorded (with delightful results) as a duo (all Django Reindhart). Grappelli born (1908) and raised in Paris was involved with music at a very early age

BIG January Birthday Salutes!

by Marc Cohn
January 31, 2020

BIG, I mean BIG January birthday salutes on Gifts & Messages this week: 120th birth anniversary for trombonists Juan Tizol and Wilbur De Paris; 110th for Django Reinhardt; 100th for vocalist Betty Roché and saxophonist Jimmy Forrest; 90th for saxophonist Jack Nimitz, trumpeter Kenny Wheeler and pianist/vibraphonist Buddy Montgomery. And special birthday greetings to bassist Eberhard ...

Jazz Musician of the Day: Stephane Grappelli

January 26, 2020

All About Jazz is celebrating Stephane Grappelli's birthday today! Stephane Grappelli (originally surname was spelled with a 'Y') would have earned himself a place in Jazz History books if only for his important role in the Quintette of the Hot Club of France, featuring the dazzling virtuosity of Django Reindhart. Grappelli's violin was the perfect foil ...