SATURDAY, MARCH 5
SATURDAY, MARCH 5, 2022 • 8:00PM
DJANGO A GOGO
STEPHANE WREMBEL
Presents a Celebration of Guitar Through the Music
of
DJANGO REINHARDT
WITH
STEPHANE WREMBEL - GUITAR/MUSICAL DIRECTOR
RUSSELL WELCH - GUITAR
AURORA NEALAND - SAXOPHONE/VOCALS
DAISY CASTRO - VIOLIN
DAVID LANGLOIS - WASHBOARD
ARI FOLMAN-COHEN - BASS
TOMMY DAVY - GUITAR
JOSH KAYE - GUITAR/OUD
NICK ANDERSON - DRUMS AND SPECIAL GUESTS
RAPHAEL FAŸS - GUITAR
SEBASTIEN FELIX - GUITAR
LAURENT HESTIN - GUITAR
Django A Go Go has been made possible through Villa Albertine, in partnership with the French Embassy in the United States.
Cover art by Irene Ypenburg
LARRY ZUCKER, Executive Director
MELAY ARAYA, Artistic Director
JEFF MANN, Marketing Director
KEITH SHERMAN, Publicity
SCOTT KLEIN, Publicity
TED LAMBERT, Chief Operating Officer
BILL DEHLING, Technical Director
CARL ACAMPORA, Production Manager
ALEX KOVEOS, Digital Media Manager
DENNIS RAKAUCKAS, Graphic Designer
D jango Reinhardt was probably the first guitar hero. A gypsy who started out on banjo, he became a sought-after child prodigy in the French musette world only to see his career interrupted when his caravan caught fire, almost killing him.
Left with only three working fingers on his fretting hand, D jango switched to guitar and soon perfected a technique that allowed him not only to keep playing, but had him also reach new virtuosic highs.
Beyond the dramatic legend of the maimed guitarist and nonchalant Gypsy, lies a deep and ferociously curious musician. He went from the Romani music world to musette balls, and then Louis Armstrong and hot jazz. He played with D uke Ellington, tried electric guitar (he didn’t like it much at first) and C harlie Parker’s recordings converted him to bebop. He played Bach of course, but was also profoundly influenced by R avel and D ebussy. In short, he was a true musician whose personality was far more complex than his legend would have it.
D jango a Gogo celebrates the legacy of the multifaceted musician - beyond the caricature of the Gypsy virtuoso and his three fast fingers. While Wrembel and guests all owe a great debt to Reinhardt’s style, their interests remain multiple. Like their hero, the range of their musical interests is infinite and they know to keep the music alive by always rejuvenating it with new borrowings and new points of views.
Portrait of D jango Reinhardt by Irene Ypenburg
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Stephane Wrembel returns to The Town Hall with Django A Gogo 2022: A Celebration of Guitar Through The Music of Django Reinhardt. “This year’s show is going to be ‘New Orleans.’ It will feature masters from France and New Orleans. Besides the traditional Django sounds, the show will be infused with the flavors of Flamenco and the streets of The French Quarter performed by some of the greatest guitar masters in the world.”
Alongside Mr. Wrembel (guitar/musical director), performers for Django A Go Go 2022 include: French guitarists Raphaël Faÿs, Laurent Hestin, and Sebastien Felix; special guests from New Orleans Russell Welch (guitar) and Aurora Nealand (saxophone/vocals); Daisy Castro (violin); Tommy Davy (guitar), Josh Kaye (guitar/Oud), David Langlois (washboard); Ari Folman-Cohen (bass guitar), and Nick Anderson (drums).
“It’s the culmination of a week we spend together playing music, sharing stories, sharing a journey, really, and it all builds up to something very special,” says Wrembel, who jump-starts the Django a Gogo Festival with a guitar camp that offers Reinhardt aficionados a chance to workshop with these modern masters. “And at the end we’re on stage at The Town Hall. I’m not inviting people just to come play solos and help sell tickets..that’s not what I have in mind. I want an extraordinary show, a concert that tells a story.”
Wrembel, an authority on Reinhardt’s style, is perhaps best known for “Bistro Fada,” the theme song from the Grammy-winning soundtrack to Woody Allen’s 2011 Oscar-winning film, Midnight In Paris. He started Django a Go Go as “a very small event” in 2004, “not as a nostalgia thing,” he emphasizes, or a simple tribute to Django Reinhardt, the man, “but to his music. something special went through him and whatever it was, it’s still alive in the music.”
He avoids the label “Gypsy jazz” commonly used for Reinhardt’s music. “I know what jazz is. Django is Django. I don’t know how to categorize him,” He says. “Django was born in 1910 and when he grew up, the music scene in Paris was Debussy and Ravel, the Impressionists, and he’s part of that. But he’s also a guitarist, so he has that Spanish classical guitar in him. Also jazz and swing arrives from America, and he gets that, plus he’s a Gypsy so he’s been initiated into Gypsy techniques and traditional Gypsy music. How do you classify a guy like that?”
This “All Star” concert is the main event of Stéphane’s Django A Gogo Music Festival & Guitar Camp 2022 which is being held this year from March 1-6, comprising this concert at The Town Hall and two more at The Woodland in Maplewood, NJ, as well as an intensive 5-day guitar “camp.”
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
STÉPHANE WREMBEL
Stéphane Wrembel is a composer, teacher and one of the most highly regarded guitarists in the world specialized in the style of Django Reinhardt. Wrembel— who originally hails from Fountainebleau, France— has had a remarkable career and has toured around the world. He wrote music for three of Woody Allen’s movies including Vicki Cristina Barcelona (“Big Brother”), Midnight in Paris (“Bistro Fada”) and the original score for the recently released, Rifkin’s Festival. He has released 16 albums under his name and the nom de plume, The Django Experiment. He has received rave reviews for his recordings and his impeccable performances. In 2019, Wrembel released Django L’Impressionniste putting the spotlight on 17 little-known preludes for solo guitar that Reinhardt recorded between 1937 and 1950. Wrembel is the first interpreter who has performed all these solo pieces and collected them in one definitive masterwork. He spent the summer of 2020 painstakingly transcribing the songs and released them in tablature in a beautifully bound book in spring of 2021. Every year since 2004, Wrembel has organized the Django a Go Go Music Festival & Guitar Camp in his charming hometown of Maplewood, New Jersey, and The Town Hall in New York City. This renowned festival includes master classes and music performances featuring some of the greatest Django masters on the planet.
For more information, please visit Stephanewrembel.com and Djangoagogo.com
Photo Credit: Lawrence Sumulong
RAPHAËL FAŸS
Raphaël Faÿs is a living legend of the Django style and revered in the world of classical guitar. Not only is he at the very foundation of the rebirth of Django’s guitar sound (his first album was released in 1979 while he was only 19 years old!), but he continues to innovate, compose, record (21 albums so far!), and inspire the ever-growing crowd of Django aficionados. His command of flamenco guitar rivals his command of Django’s style. This is a very unique phenomenon in the world of guitar. He is one of the greatest virtuosos who ever lived.
LAURENT HESTIN
Laurent Hestin started guitar at age 7, and quickly became one of the most in demand studio musicians in France. He is very famous for his unbelievable control of the instrument and his extreme versatility. On top of it he grew up and lived near Django Reinhardt’s hometown, and is one of the rare musicians to have worked with two legends of the Gypsy Jazz style: Django’s son Babik Reinhardt and master Patrick Saussois. He is mainly touring with musicals all over Europe, but also performs in an incredible variety of bands, in stadiums or local intimate jazz clubs.
SÉBASTIEN FÉLIX
Sébastien Félix is known in France as “Guardian of the Temple” (The temple of Gypy Jazz). He seems to be spiritually connected to the legendary guitarist and composer Django Reinhardt. Many modern guitarists have included a more modern take in the tradition, but Sébastien remains one of the main representations of the tradition. A gypsy himself, he picked up the guitar at age 13, and has since then toured the festivals and clubs in Europe. His quintet is highly regarded as one of the best in the world and he shares his music which is interpreted in the purest tradition of Gypsy Jazz and the Hot Club of France.
RUSSELL WELCH
Russell is not only the most sought after guitarist in New Orleans, he is also one of the finest Django style players in the world! Russell has been the recipient of multiple jazz and composition awards, tours internationally, and plays with his band and many other projects. In New Orleans he has received nominations for “Best Traditional Jazz Artist,” “Best Traditional Jazz Album” and “Best Guitarist.” He has released four award-nominated albums since 2012. His third, all-original album, Russell Welch Hot Quartet’s Mississippi Gipsy (2015) was reviewed as “masterful” and a “tour de force” by Offbeat Magazine.
AURORA NEALAND
An established bandleader, composer, performer and improviser, Aurora has become a prominent force in the New Orleans music scene since she first arrived in 2004. She is most recognized for her performance on saxophones, clarinet and vocals and has been at the forefront of the revival of New Orleans Traditional Jazz amongst the younger generation of the city’s musicians. After playing and learning as a sideman in established New Orleans bands for several years (Panorama Jazz Band, VaVaVoom, The New Orleans Moonshiners), she formed her own Traditional Jazz band, The Royal Roses. In 2010, Aurora was voted as one of Downbeat Magazine’s “Top Ten Rising Stars for Soprano Saxophone in 2010. In 2010 and 2011 she appeared frequently as herself in the HBO TV series, Treme.
DAISY CASTRO
Daisy Castro is a unique and incredibly powerful voice in the violin world today. With roots firmly planted in the fiery passion of the Jazz Manouche tradition, her unique style refreshes and renews with a modern edge, global influence and instrumentation bridging the distance between Django Reinhardt’s generation and her own in a very exciting way helping to bring this beautiful music from the past into the future.
TOMMY DAVY
Whether it’s French waltzes, poignant interpretations of Gypsy folk music or the swinging standards of the Hot Club of France, this LA-based guitarist demonstrates technical mastery, compositional creativity and sensitivity beyond his years. His vast repertoire also includes Romanian, Hungarian, Serbian and Russian Gypsy music. Tommy has accompanied and performed in concert with principal international artists including Angelo Debarre, Stochelo Rosenberg, Gismo Graf, Tcha Limberger, Lolo Meier, Stephane Wrembel, Florin Niculescu and Boulou Ferre. In 2008 Tommy founded DjangoGuitars; a purpose-built specialty shop and preservation hub that brings a deeply-rooted European sensibility to the American guitar market. Tommy is a recurring contributor to Acoustic Guitar Magazine on the subject of Gypsy Jazz.
JOSH KAYE
Originally from London, England, Josh Kaye is a NYC based Jazz guitar and Arabic Oud player, best known for his specialization as an accompanist in the “Jazz Manouche” or “Gypsy Swing” style, where he has performed with giants of the tradition, from Samson Schmitt to Stochelo Rosenberg. Josh currently performs as a regular member of Stephane Wrembel’s band as well as his own original Middle Eastern fusion project, Baklava Express.
DAVID LANGLOIS
David Langlois was born in France where he learned the art of drumming. In 2003, after studying various percussive techniques in Africa, Asia and Central America, David moved to New York and has since collaborated with Bette Midler, Paul McCartney, Les Paul, Bucky Pizzarelli, David Grisman, Paquito D’Rivera, Angelo Debarre, Dorado Schmitt, Roger Kellaway, Stephane Wrembel, The Blue Vipers and many others. David performs regularly in prestigious venues including Lincoln Center, Birdland, Iridium, Joe’s Pub, Knitting Factory, etc... His recording work includes 18 albums, 3 concert DVDs and 5 movies.
ARI FOLMAN-COHEN
Ari Folman-Cohen supplies a solid, creative and melodic function to any musical endeavor in which he finds himself. he began his musical career in New York City in 2006, and has since established himself as a go-to bass player for a wide array of music, both on upright and electric bass. He is a member of the stephane Wrembel Band and also juggles a busy schedule supporting many singer/ songwriters, jazz, experimental and world musicians in the New York area and beyond.
NICK ANDERSON
Nick Anderson is a New York based drummer who has toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, Central America, and Africa. Reviewers have described Nick’s playing as “downright lyrical, transcending the seeming constraints of the nonpitched drum set,” (Rochester City Newspaper), and he’s been referred to as “an ideal timekeeper with his light, sophisticated playing making the music dance,” (All About Jazz). The Berklee College of Music and NYU educated musician is currently performing projects ranging from jazz, free improv, ska, country and rock with groups such as Stephane Wrembel Band, Zephania and the 18 Wheelers, and Pangari & the Socialites.
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This program is supported, in part, by public funds from The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Town Hall’s Education Outreach Program, Judy Collins, Darlene Love and Storytellers Lab are made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. The Centennial Concert Series is funded, in part, by Howard Gilman Foundation. We would like to thank the following foundations, corporations, and government institutions for their support:
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