INTERVIEW: Guitar masters set to celebrate music of Django Reinhardt
Stéphane Wrembel is one of the preeminent interpreters of Django Reinhardt’s music. Photo courtesy of artist’s representation / Credit on picture / Provided with permission.
Audience members can travel back in time Saturday, May 5 at New York City’s Town Hall. That’s when the venerable Midtown venue will become something akin to a French dance hall or maybe a smoky jazz club in some European backwater. The celebration that night is called Django A Gogo, an evening that celebrates and expands upon the music of gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt.
At the helm of the production is Stéphane Wrembel, who has dedicated much of his career to interpreting the music of the famed guitarist; this will be his 11th Django A Gogo concert. He will be joined on stage by more than a few legends: Stochelo Rosenberg, Simba Baumgartner (Reinhardt’s great-grandson), Paulus Schäfer, Olli Soikkeli, Sara L’Abriola, Nick Anderson, Thor Jensen, Ari Folman-Cohen, Daisy Castro and Pierre “Kamlo” Barré. A special guest for the evening will be bluegrass mandolin player Sam Bush.
Wrembel and Reinhardt have a lot of similarities. For starters, they both come from the same area of France. Wrembel was born in Paris but raised in Fountainbleau, the home of Reinhardt. In that town, Wrembel developed a deep appreciation for Reinhardt’s history and legacy. Reinhardt was a Sinti, and his style was rooted in Sinti music, according to a press release for Django A Gogo, and Wrembel followed suit and immersed himself in Sinti culture in order to better understand the guitarist’s output.
“This is a huge event,” Wrembel said in a recent phone interview. “It’s not like the usual concert with a band or even with guests. I’m gathering the greatest masters in the Django Reinhardt style in the world all at once, so it’s basically a lineup of headliners. Anywhere in the world these guys are headlining festivals. They are the greatest players in the world. … These guys are just insane.”
The presence of Bush, who does not play in the typical Reinhardt style, will add a unique element to the evening’s celebration.
“So the thing is we’re going to play mostly a repertoire of Django with these masters of the Django style, and we’re going to have a couple of guys who are going to play, like Sam Bush,” he said. “While not from the Django world, they are masters. They come from something else, but they can totally hang in that genre. … And it’s not enough to have someone who can play music. They really have to have the right qualities to fit the show, so we’re going to have Sam Bush play those Django things. We’re also going to play a couple American songs, so we’re going to have those masters of gypsy music, like Stochelo Rosenberg and Simba Baumgartner, who is Django’s [great-]grandson, playing a couple more bluegrass or country songs. So it’s going to be very special. It’s never been done.”
Town Hall gave Wrembel a lot of freedom to choose the musicians and the songs for the evening. He felt he had the flexibility to carve out a show with a broad appeal. He summarized the concert experience like this: It will feature “masters of Django playing Django, masters of something else than Django playing Django, masters of Django playing non-Django and masters of non-Django playing non-Django.”
Rehearsing for the special concert has been unconventional. Wrembel has crafted a mockup of the show and its setlist, but there should be a good deal of improvisation as well. It will start out with a couple musicians on stage, and then “the band is bigger and bigger and bigger. We are 12 musicians, so I give them an order of what I think will unfold nicely. I prepare 12 songs, and they can choose songs. ‘I’d rather play this. I’d rather play that.’ I propose a roadmap, but everyone kind of like helps pick and choose within it what fits or not. It’s a very democratic process.”
Wrembel lives and breathes Reinhardt’s music, and he been immersed in the master’s legacy since he was born. It was fortuitous that he lived his seminal years in Fountainbleau, the capital of all things Django.
“I’m from Fountainbleau, which is like his home base, so there’s a lot of Django,” he said. “Since I was born I heard Django. I knew his son Babik. When we were kids, we used to go the bars and drink with him and stuff. There is a festival every year in summer in my town, you know, so I attended it many times. I was familiar with his music forever; however, I started studying it seriously when I was about 18 or 19. I really started to expand my guitar knowledge. I really paid attention because you grew up with it there, but once you become a musician, and you start paying attention, and you want to do a career, then you really pay attention.”
Wrembel spoke to Hollywood Soapbox right after he transcribed one of Reinhardt’s tunes. During that process, he listened, slowly and methodically, for the influence and message of this guitar player who died more than 60 years ago.
“I’m slowing down his stuff,” he said. “Second phrase it has something that sounds like some of the things that he does but is actually completely different and completely unexpected and completely beautiful. If I wouldn’t have paid attention to it precisely, I wouldn’t have caught that little subtlety. So you realize Django is full of treasures like that, and then each phrase that he constructs, each solo is amazing.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Django A Gogo with Stéphane Wrembel and other musicians will play Saturday, May 5 at New York City’s Town Hall. Click here for more information and tickets.
