Research Catalog

Title

Gypsy jazz : in search of Django Reinhardt and the soul of gypsy swing / Michael Dregni.

Author

Dregni, Michael, 1961-

Publication

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2008.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xii, 333 p., [16] p. of plates : ill.; 25 cm.

Summary

"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 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."--Jacket.

Subject

• Reinhardt, Django, 1910-1953
• Geschichte
• Geschichte 1920-2000
• Jazz > France > History and criticism
• Romanies > Music > History and criticism
• Jazz musicians > France

Genre/Form

• Music
• Criticism, interpretation, etc.
• Musique.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [309]-317), discography (p. [303]-308), and index.

Contents

The guitar with a human voice : in search of Django Reinhardt -- The boy with the banjo : into a zigzag paradise -- Bals musette : music from the dark side of the City of Light -- Jazz modernistique : revisiting the Babylon of gypsy jazz -- Songs of one thousand and one nights : Django Reinhardt, Schnuckenack Reinhardt, and gypsy jazz under the Nazis -- Gypsy bebop : from Dizzy and Bird to Django and the Gibson generation -- Les guitares à moustache : revolutionary jazz guitars for a jazz revolution -- Crossroads : on the road to Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer -- Dynasty : Les Frères Ferret and their musical clan -- La dernière valse des niglos : saints and sinners of the Malha clan -- Au son des guitares : on the trail of Patotte Bousquet -- The unsung master of the gypsy waltz : tracing the legacy of Tchan Tchou -- The lost : the secret history of Lousson Baumgartner and the "other" family -- Minstrel : Bamboula Ferret and the travels of a Romany troubadour -- Resurrection : the new elegance of Biréli Lagrène, Stochelo Rosenberg, Angelo Debarre, and Ninine Garcia -- The music thieves : into America with Danny Fender, Johnny Guitar, John Adomono, and Julio Bella -- Gypsy jazz rap : syntax and the search for "le meilleur chemin--" -- The most dangerous guitar lesson : jamming with David Reinhardt.

ISBN

• 9780195311921
• 0195311922

LCCN

^^2007038061

OCLC

156816874

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library