Arpeggios are the building blocks of a good jazz vocabulary if you want to play in the pocket. Django used them all the time and they are an integral part of Gypsy jazz.  Paul Mehling’s 4th video lesson is devoted to teaching the basic arpeggios in several different positions and includes excellent tips for connecting arpeggios in different positions.  While advanced players probably won’t find much new information here, beginner and intermediate Gypsy jazz guitarists will benefit greatly from this 70 minute lesson.  Paul moves effortlessly through the octaves on his Dupont MD-20 and with some practice, you will be able to do so as well.

The video is available from many sources online, but I suggest buying it from Paul directly at www.hcsf.com.  Django’s style of improvisation was once referred to as “ornamented arpeggios”.  Before ornamenting them, one must know where the arpeggios are. Paul’s fine video will show you.

Paul Mehling, the leader of the Hot Club of San Francisco is known to many as the Godfather of Gypsy jazz in the United States. And for good reason. When Gypsy jazz was on very few musician’s radar screens, Paul was bringing Django influenced music to the world with his own interpretation of the music of Django Reinhardt.  In addition to being an inveterate performer of this music, Paul has also been a respected music educator. He has released four video lessons.  Pick Power! is the third in the series. This video lesson is well worth the $29.95 price of admission for beginning and intermediate Gypsy jazz students. Some advanced players will also find value. The lesson is a series of exercises designed to build right hand strength and control which are necessary to properly play Gypsy jazz.  Combined with “Gypsy Picking” by Michael Horowitz, Pick Power! can help the student of Gypsy jazz develop the idiomatic picking style that is used by many, if not most, of the Gypsy jazz greats. It is a 90 minute lesson and is available from Amazon.com and other sites, but I strongly recommend ordering it directly from Paul himself at www.HCSF.com.
Having played a few gigs with Paul, I can assure all who read this that he is a master mucisian and a nice guy to boot.  With Pick Power!, Paul has shared his secrets to changing his picking from an American style to the powerful picking style used by the Gypsy greats like Stochelo Rosenberg and Bireli Lagrene. Perhaps Paul’s secrets can unlock your potential as well. One warning though, a bit of work on your part will be necessary (Paul recommends at least 30 minutes a day). Just watching this well produced video lesson alone won’t change a thing!

Northern California guitarist George Cole continues his mission to write a sequel to the Great American Songbook with his new release “Riverside Drive”. The album is a well produced  collection of George Cole original compositions (plus one Cole arranged tune by guitarist Jimmy Luttrell).
  The muscians on the album are among the Bay area’s best, including (but not limited to); Julian Smedley on violin, Joe Kyle on bass and Djangology.net’s very own Jack Fields on rhythm guitar.  Also featured on a few tracks is Tim Kliphuis, a world class violin virtuoso from the netherlands (who is no stranger in the world of Gypsy jazz). 

Cole’s Django inspired guitar playing is tasty and never overdone.  His compositions are mostly songs rather than tunes, meaning vocal melodies are the theme here. Clever lyrics, familiar chord progressions catchy hooks and tight arrangements make this an album of music that would be accessible to anyone.  And enjoyable by all. 

Recently I was visited by French Clarinetist Didier Burgaud.  Didier gave me a copy of “Festival Swing” the CD released by his Gypsy Jazz band Djangomania.  The recording is superb. In addition to Didier’s fine clarinet playing (the influence of Hubert Rostaing is deeply felt), co band leader Laurent Bajata (longtime Romane sideman) plays archtop guitar with tremendous musicality.  The album contains mostly Django Tunes (Django’s Castle, Blue Drag, etc.), but also contains two Bajata originals and two tunes that Django recorded but did not write (Vipers Dream and Clair De Lune). The arrangements are tight, the improvosations are inventive and in the pocket.  This album is a winner and is highly recomended. For more information, contact Didier Burgaud at: http://www.didierburgaud.com/orchestres2.php?lang=en.

Legend has it that occasionally Django Reinhardt did not make it to his gigs. Perhaps a billiards game caught Django’s fancy and time flew by before Django realized that downbeat had come and gone. The story goes that Django’s brother Joseph AKA “Nin-Nin would cover for Django by playing lead guitar with the band (Joseph was one of two rhythm guitarists in the band). We can only imagine what the Hot Club of France sounded like with Nin-Nin covering for Django. Until now.

Label Ouest, a French record company (www.label-ouest.net) has released some long out of print Joseph Reinhardt recordings from 1958-1959 in a new CD entitled Joseph Reinhardt joue…Django. These tracks are a gem. We hear Nin-Nin playing lead acoustic guitar with two rhythm guitarists, a bass and a violin. The arrangements are by Nin-Nin, and as a bonus track we have a 1947 recording of Stephane Grapelli’s Hot 4 playing a Joseph Reinhardt original (“Oui, Pour Vous Revoir”) with Nin-Nin on lead guitar.

The 10 tracks from the late 50′s (Another legend is that after Django’s death, Nin-Nin gave up the guitar for several years, so these tracks represent a triumphant return to the world of jazz guitar for Nin-Nin) contain three Joseph Reinhardt originals (“Bric-a-brac”, “Triste Melodie” and “Manouche”, four Django compositions (“Djangology”, “Nuages”, “Django’s Castle” and “Bric Top”) and three standards of the day (“Sweet Sue, “I know that You Know” and “Mon Pote Le Gitan”).

On several of the tunes we have the melody played going in and a Joseph Reinhardt shout chorus going out. “Sweet Sue” is reharmonized with a chromatic half step movement.

While Nin-Nin was not the great virtuoso that Django was, Nin-Nin was an excellent jazz guitarist, and these tracks are ample proof of that. The improvisations are lyrical, the changes are made, and there are octaves, block chords, tremolo rolls and superb use of a large vocabulary of jazz chords when comping for the violinist. Nin-Nin leaves lots of space, like the best jazz musicians of all eras. This is not an album of shredding or a display of prodigious chops, this is an album of great music. Nin-Nin’s older brother would have been proud. Any fan of Gypsy jazz should own this CD. We now know that on those occasions when Django was unable to make it to the gig (billiards can be intoxicating at times!), the audience was treated to the superb jazz guitar sounds of Joseph Reinhardt.

Highly recommended.

Fusing musical genres is probably as old as music itself. Jazz itself is the fusion of African and European music combined on the shores of North America. In the 1960′s young jazz musicians like Larry Coryell and Chick Corea brought the beat of the rock music they grew up with into the world of jazz. With the communications of today, musical genres from all over the world are being combined.

Enter Louis Matthee, a guitarist who was born and raised in South Africa who now calls the San Francisco Bay area home. Louis (AKA Lou-Lou) has fused Gypsy jazz with “South African Jazz” in his new release “Gypsy Jive”. Joining Lou-Lou in this effort are some of the Bay area’s best musicians, Joe Kyle, jr. on bass, Tom Griesser on reeds and Ralph Carney on penny whistle and flute.

Lou-Lou has strong chops on the Selmac guitar and a sound that is rooted in the Django Reinhardt tradition with a Robin Nolanesque touch added for good measure. The albums 10 tracks contain two Gypsy jazz standards (Django’s Castle and Lady Be Good), 4 Lou-Lou originals and 4 South African jazz tunes. The music has a very strong Afro-Caribbean feel (often Lou-Lou’s guitar licks emulate the steel drums to my ears on this disc), and the danceability of these tunes in always present. The two Gypsy jazz standards are done in a very stylized manner.

Those who look for a cerebral jazz experience will probably find this offering a bit simplistic. The tunes are (mostly) based on simple, repetitious harmonies. Those looking for orthodox Gypsy jazz, keep moving. This is something different. Those looking for something new, something happy and something with a serious groove will love it.

My advice is this; get some friends, go to the beach and bring a boombox and queue up “Gypsy Jive”. Play it loud. Your party will be a hit.