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If registration allows -- and it at the time of this revision in early April, it seems quite doable -- we'd love to bring even more staff on board. For example, all 5 of these remarkable guitarists have expressed an interest in joining us.
Here's your chance, friends. Do yourself a favor and make it happen by pre-registering now. We'll do the rest. |
Here's where you'll find short introductions to just some of the artists who will be joining us at Django in June in 2013 as teachers and performers. Looking over this list I'm having trouble categorizing them simply. Some are joining us for the very first time: Tcha Limberger, Jacopo Martini, Ben Powell, Sergiu Popa. Some have been here before, but only once or twice: Adrien Moignard and Jeremie Arranger, Robin Nolan, Aaron Weinstein, Dallas Vietty. Then there are a couple former students making the transition to staff: huzzahs are in order for Adrian Holovaty and Christine Tassan. And last but assuredly not least, we have several of our staff regulars without whom Django in June just wouldn't feel like home: Gonzalo Bergara, Denis Chang, Jeff Radaich, Michael Horowitz and Jack Soref.
| Violin | |
| Tcha Limberger (Belgium) | Tcha Limberger (Belgium) |
| Adrien Moignard (France) | Ben Powell (Boston) |
| Robin Nolan (Holland) | Aaron Weinstein (NY, NY) |
| Jacopo Martini (Italy) | Mandolin |
| Gonzalo Bergara (Argentina, via California) | Matt Sircely (Washington) |
| Denis Chang (Montréal; Sesame Street) | Aaron Weinstein (NY, NY) |
| Jeff Radaich (California) | Accordion |
| Adrian Holovaty (Chicago; Cyberspace) | Dallas Vietty (Brooklyn, NY) |
| Christine Tassan (France; Montréal) | Sergiu Popa (Moldova, Montreal) |
| Michael Horowitz (Seattle; djangobooks) | Bass |
| Jeremie Arranger (France) |
Tcha Limberger: Guitar, Violin and Clarinet |
"One word -- Tcha." It was a word I'd heard before. Clarinetist, guitarist and violinist Tcha Limberger was, after all, born into one of the great lineages of Gypsy jazz. His grandfather, the violinist Piotto Limberger, was a contemporary of Django's and so among the 1st generation of performers to play Hot Club repertoire with a Gypsy twist. His father Vivi was a member of the now-legendary Waso with Fapy Lafertin and Koen De Cauter, and it was they who tutored Tcha on Django-style guitar. Despite these spotless bona fides, Tcha has not limited himself to working within the Gypsy jazz idiom. To mention just one of his many areas of study, as a young adult he travelled to Budapest to make a serious study of Hungarian folk music traditions. He has since founded bands playing authentic Magyar Nota and folk music from Kalotaszeg, Transsylvania. This expertise opens up at least one interesting area of inquiry for the violinists who work with him at Django Camp, namely, the influence of these folk music traditions on the way Gypsy violinists—think Schnuckenack Reinhardt or Florin Niculescu rather than Grappelli—have approached jazz improvisation. That would be only scratching the surface of an artist that Denis Chang once called "a gold mine of information on music." Just bring your sharpest tools and plan on digging deep with Tcha. He will be with us for all of Django Camp and working primarily with violinists and reed players, though guitarists too will have plenty of opportunity pick his brain...and some tunes!
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Here you have the entire contents of an email I received from our friend Patrus (of
Adrien Moignard: Guitar |
Since then Adrien has gone from being a youthful sensation to being, quite simply one of the best and most sought-after jazz guitarists on the Paris scene today. He has been featured on all the Selmer 607 releases, which claim to introduce the new generation of Gypsy Swing virtuosos to the wider public. In this case the marketing hype is accurate—the talent displayed on these disks is staggering to anyone who ever laid a finger near a fret—and yet even among this array of bright lights, Adrien shines. Among his many other projects, Adrien recorded a duo CD with Gonzalo Bergara in 2012 (to be released in 2013) which offers us as good an occasion as any to have him back. And so we shall. He'll be on staff for all of Django Camp working with guitarists. Then he, Gonzalo and bassist Jeremie Arranger will give us a chemistry lesson in their weekend performance. To reduce the risk to all the guitarists in attendance, no campfires will be allowed.
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I first encountered Adrien Moignard in 2003 when he started making waves in the campgrounds of the International Django Reinhardt Festival in Samois-sur-Seine. He was maybe 16 at the time, largely unknown, and already demonstrating the sort of talent that could make a mere mortal toss his guitar in the campfire and sulk on home. I resisted that temptation and—fast forward 5 years—in 2008 Adrien was the featured soloist with Ensemble Zaiti at another world-class gypsy jazz festival: Django in June! Maybe you caught that performance. Wow.
Robin Nolan |
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Robin was (and is) a natural choice for an event that from the get-go was focused on offering musicians the opportunity to study this style and then get down to the seriously fun business of sharing it. In the early 2000's his instructional books and play-along CD's were among very few good guides available and myriad guitarists (myself among them) learned their first few tunes from them. Still very much at the forefront of Gypsy jazz education, his current online instructional courses include his Gypsy Jazz JumpStart Masterclass, Gypsy Jazz Fast Track, Gypsy Jazz Transfusion, and the new Gypsy Jazz Guitar Secrets iPad magazine. He's agreed to step out of cyberspace and join you in the flesh for all of Django Camp as a guitar instructor. As much as he has invested in teaching, Robin is very much a player and performer as well, most often in the company of his own Robin Nolan Trio. Sophisticated, eclectic, spacious, humorous...these are just a few of the words that pop to my mind when I let it drift back to remembrance of his past concerts here in Northampton. I'm saving mental space for new and fond memories from this year's appearance with the equally inventive Tcha Limberger.
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Robin Nolan will forever have a special place in the heart and history of Django in June. His Trio was the event in our inaugural year exactly 10 years ago, in 2003. Jamming in the morning, a clinic in the afternoon, a concert that evening, and Django in June #1 was over. But it was born, and Robin (along with his brother Kevin and bassist Simon Planting) must have helped us off to a good start...'cause here we are, on the cusp of puberty!
There is a burgeoning Italian Gypsy jazz scene these days, but as yet most Americans have had little exposure to it. We'll take a first step toward remedying that this year by welcoming our first Italian artist, Jacopo Martini. I first saw him in one of Patrus' videos from Samois 2012. (It may have been the one below I've labeled "Jacopo and friends.") It didn't take much research and correspondance with him to get the impression that he would fit in really well at Django in June as a teacher and performer.
Gonzalo Bergara : Guitar |
While in France Gonzalo recorded a CD with Adrien Moignard, set to be released in the spring of 2013. Those of you who were here in 2008 no doubt carry the same image I do of these two guitar wizards playfully having it out in the shady courtyard of King and Scales, the dorms we used that year. We can't recreate that first encounter of theirs, but we can invite them to show us where their friendship has taken them since. And so we shall. A masterful technician, a relentlessly inventive composer, a thoughtful teacher, Gonzalo is a tremendous resource for both audiences and students of the style here in North America. So we plan to share him with both, again.
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As anyone who has attended Django in June over the past, what, 5 years knows, Gonzalo Bergara is a regular on our guitar staff. So we have window seats on the development of his music, his career, and his hairstyles. 2012 was a big year for Gonzalo on all three fronts. He, like Yours Truly, lost his ponytail. But unlike me, he released a splendid new CD with his Quartet, Walking Home, and played the mainstage at the grandaddy of all Django festivals, the International Django Reinhardt Festival in Samois-sur-Seine, en France. I watched the performance streamed live; they smoked it.
Denis Chang : Guitar |
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Throughout that time Denis has cultivated friendships and musical collaborations with many European masters of the style—some well-known, some less. No matter. Denis recognizes quality when he hears it. Lucky for us, he's a quick learner and a generous teacher, so we all get the benefit of his long travels, his attentiveness to (some would say, obsession with) detail, and his eagerness to share. With his latest project DC Music School coming online over the past year, Denis is creating an even wider platform from which to do just that—share. By all means check it out. But note this as well: with that project under way, his work and travel schedule are now scary-busy, which means that opportunities for face-to-face tutelage with Denis are getting rarer. Come June, you'll know where to find him. |
Denis Chang has been on our staff at Django in June from Year 2 on. (Year 1, we had no "staff", just our guest artists, the Robin Nolan Trio.) Early on Denis attracted the attention and earned the gratitude of many students of the style by virtue of his high-quality transcriptions of solos by Django Reinhardt and other GJ masters, especially those of Django himself and the extended Rosenberg clan. Next came the authoritative DVD's produced by HyperHip Media: Jazz
Manouche: The Art of Accompaniment, and the four volume Jazz Manouche:
Technique & Improvisation.
Jeff Radaich : Guitar |
As rhythm guitarist for the Gonzalo Bergara Quartet, we knew that he would be a valuable resource for anyone who wanted to focus on rhythm guitar while here. What we didn't know is that Jeff is an accomplished lead player who (like most of our staff, but unlike most Americans) employs the Djangoesque right-hand technique Michael Horowitz dubbed Gypsy Picking. He will not tell you it's easy, but he will prove that it is doable for mere mortals and break down the process of building solid technique and a cache of idiomatic riffs that will serve you now and over the long haul. Jeff is working with another member of Gonzalo's quartet (bassist Brian Netzley) on a side project they call The Black Market Trust and their first CD of Gypsy jazz-inspired material was released in the fall of 2012. A couple of the links below will give you pre-taste of that. Enjoy. Then come get a signed copy from him in person at Django Camp this summer. He'll be here, at your service.
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Jeff was a last minute addition to our Django Camp guitar crew in 2011, an early invitee for 2012, and in 2013...a no-brainer. Ultimately, those who attend this event have the final word regarding such matters. Word is, Jeff's a great addition to our teaching staff.
Adrian Holovaty: Guitar |
After all, few are born with the natural abilities of an Adrien Moignard, a Tcha Limberger, a Gonzalo. None of us will ever have the learning opportunities that Rino van Hooijdonk enjoyed in his youth. Most of us can't devote months of our lives—as has, say, Denis Chang—to study in Europe with the masters of the style. Our "real deal" is that we know very few people who play Gypsy jazz with any degree of proficiency and that we have demanding jobs, maybe kids, and lives that, alas, are not primarily devoted to music. Just like Adrian. But, somehow, he's been posting youtube videos since 2007 and by now has 24,000 subscribers and 16 million cumulative views. He teaches weekly gypsy jazz classes at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. He's been performing with Alfonso Ponticelli since 2008 and now leads his own gypsy-jazz trio, Hot Club Thing. So, apparently, dedicated amateurs with real lives can learn to play this music at quite a high level. Adrian is not the only one of our Campers who has achieved this, as you know well if you've ever had the opportunity to wander through one high-end jam after another on any evening at Django in June. And that, friends, is very good news. Take it in, and take heart. Then take Adrian aside and ask him, "How did you do that?"
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Adrian Holovaty has been attending Django in June ever since we first began offering the longer format Django Camp in 2007. (Before that, DiJ was a daylong or weekend event.) He will be the first non-professional musician to make the transition from attending Camp as a student to teaching here. I suggest you ask him one question: "How did you do that?"
Christine Tassan : Guitar |
So on the first night of Camp last year I was thrilled to wander into Michael Bauer's suite—where he was sharing both vintage guitars and single malt scotch with characteristic generosity—and find Christine Tassan, a first-time attendee, confidently and competently jamming on guitar with some our most advanced participants. Score! Christine was born in France, but emmigrated to Quebec in 1994. Her musical migration led from her first love, singing, through classical guitar and songwriting before bringing her to a serious study of Swing guitar à la Django. You can recognize and enjoy all these influences in the music she now makes with Christine Tassan et les Imposteures. Of the 14 songs on their latest disc, C’est l’heure de l’apéro, Christine wrote or co-wrote fully half. The four women who make up the troupe are all vocalists (as well as instrumentalists) and their tight, sophisticated vocal arrangements bring a welcome balance to a tradition heavily tilted toward things with strings. So Christine will help us break new ground in 2013 as the first female guitar instructor at Django Camp, working primarily with students who are still laying down the bricks of their foundation. But there are other skills she brings to the proverbial table that we might explore as well. Interested in daily sessions for singers, working on vocal arrangements in this style? How about an afternoon circle for songwriters penning the next "J'attendrai"? I'll be checking in with registered participants as to their interest. If we have even a small group of trailblazers, well, Christine is used to playing that role.
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Maybe you've noticed that Django in June is kind of a guy thing. This is not by design and most decidedly does not reflect the preference of our attendees, who have been known to remark that the Marine Corps is more gender-balanced than we are. Sorry guys (and gals.) At least on guitar, Gypsy jazz attracts a lot more men than women to its study.
Born and raised in Madison WI, Jack Soref has spent his young adulthood living in Boston where he has been one of the pillars upon which Beantown's fairly substantial Gypsy jazz scene rests. He's also one of the pillars on which our instructional program rests, having taught here for the last three years. As a Jazz Composition major at Berklee Jack gained (among other things) the music notation skills he now employs when working up the beautiful lead sheets we'll be using for our morning repertoire warm-up every day at Django Camp. So before you even arrive, you owe Jacques a tip of the chapeau.
Michael Horowitz: Guitar |
Michael will be back at Django in June again this year, joining us on the weekend as a special guest clinician and peerless purveyor of all things Gypsy jazz, including a large selection of books, CDs, DVD's, picks and strings. Get it while he's here!
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Time it was, if you didn't have direct access to an instructor playing in the traditional Gypsy style you were to left to your own devices when it came to figuring out how Django got his distinctive sound, how he moved across the fingerboard, or how he and his accompanists approached rhythm guitar. With the publication of his Gypsy Picking, Michael changed all that and, in one fell rest stroke, raised the bar for written Gypsy jazz instructional materials everywhere. (I exempt the Gypsies’ own oral tradition from the sphere of his influence. But how many of us have—like Michael—had ready access to that?) Since then, his Djangobooks publishing company and web site have continued to provide an extraordinary array of resources for students and fans of this rich tradition.
Ben Powell : Violin |
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If you yourself need a more thorough introduction, follow the link to his website below for an unusually rich bio for an artist still only in his mid-twenties. Here's just a snippet from that which may be of particular interest to those who take their jazz Hot:
A recent Berklee grad, Ben now lives in Boston, so however his accent doth protest he's a homey for us. And a busy one, performing with the Ben Powell Quartet, a couple different duos, the International String Trio, and as sideman for an ever-widening array of artists across an equally wide spectrum of musical styles from classical to pop to jazz. In the spring of 2012 Ben released his "personal tribute" to Stéphane Grappelli, a CD featuring vibraphonist Gary Burton entitled New Street. You'll find a link to a nicely done promotional video for that project below. Once you're done with all the cyber-intros, though, let us introduce you properly, in person.
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As an American, I am instinctively impressed by people with European accents. (There, now you know, in case you are trying to have your way with me.) So when a young chap with a British accent called during Django in June a couple years ago and asked if he could come by to jam with some of his friends who were on staff I said sure, c'mon by the dorm. Soon, Ben Powell was in the thick of it with some of our heavy hitters, and sounding great. I don't think we'd said more than a dozen words to one another, but considered us "introduced".
Aaron Weinstein: Mandolin & Violin |
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Aaron: No, but I've played a Stratocaster. Welcome to the wit and warmth of Aaron Weinstein — self-described "jazz violinist, mandolinist, arranger, and bow-tie rights activist." Aaron was last here in 2011 to work with both violinists and mandolin players and to headline one of our shows with Gonzalo Bergara. I'm thrilled to have him back again this year, if only for Friday and Saturday. He is, after all, a very busy guy. And for good reason... When Aaron's debut CD A Handfull of Stars came out in 2006, Nat Hentoff's review in the Wall Street Journal dubbed it "the rebirth of the hot jazz violin." Aaron was then all of 20 years old and still a student at Berklee, but he had already been tilting heads for several years. In 2002, Downbeat magazine voted his Stephane Grappelli Tribute Trio the nation's best high school instrumental jazz group. That was after he had twice won the Illinois State Fiddle Championships (in 1998 and 2001), becoming the youngest person to hold that title. The list of places he has played—from the Django festivals at Birdland and Samois to concert halls and festivals all over the world—is already too long to recount. So, too, the list of artists with whom he has performed and recorded, though we'll offer a special mention of his extensive work with Bucky Pizzarelli, someone uniquely qualified to introduce a young artist to music of the Swing era. Though best known as a violinist, Aaron is also a killer mandolin player with a special talent for solo chord-melody arrangements. I've included one video testament to that in the links below, but there are a whole series of them on YouTube. Someone, and I think it was me, once said that mastery is the art of making the impossible look effortless. If I said that, when I said it, I may very well have been thinking of Aaron Weinstein. So bring your violin, mandolin or bow-tie for a little help from a master.
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Questioner: Have you ever played a Stradivarius?
Matt Sircely: Mandolin |
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While all these players have had extensive experienece with jazz in general, some arrived on the Smith campus as relative newbies to the Gypsy jazz tradition. Not so this year's primary jazz-mando instructor, Matt Sircely. After studying jazz on the mandolin at Hamilton College in New York, Matt moved to Seattle where, in 2000, he and some friends founded Hot Club Sandwich, one of the first groups on the West Coast to reintroduce the Gypsy jazz sound to American audiences. The sextet blends 3 guitars, bass, violin, mandolin and the occasional guest accordion to offer up a fun and tasty melange of straight Hot Club repertoire, American big band standards, European jazz, Brazilian choros, musettes, boleros, danzones and traditional Gypsy folk tunes. Just the kind of sandwich most of us at Django in June would like to dig into.
And here's some video footage from a recent informal gig Matt had with James Schneider on bass, our pal Jim Char and Pearl Django's Neil Andersson on guitar. La Gitana, Olympia, WA - February 2, 2013 |
One of Django in June's unique contributions to the Gypsy jazz tradition as it develops here in North America is our inclusion of mandolin in our instructional offerings. If European mandolinists are getting in on the action closer to Django's home terre, they have so far evaded my scouring gaze. So it looks as though we are free to decide whether and how mandolinists will claim a place around the campfire. Over a decade of Django in Junes (or is that Djangos in June? anyway...) some of the best and bravest mandolinists in the US have taken on the challenge, including Will Patton, Jamie Masefield, John McGann and Paul Glasse.
When the First Great Awakening roared through New England in the 1730's and '40's, Northampton's reknowned preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards played a critical role in guiding that movement and so helped define the faith and character of our young nation.
Sergiu Popa : Accordion |
His own studies commenced with his father Ion Popa, himself a well-recognized Gypsy accordionist in their native Moldova. Sergiu learned traditional folk and Roma styles with him from a young age, along the way absorbing the Jewish, Turkish, Russian, Serbian and Bulgarian repertoire expected of a working musician in that most culturally rich region of the world. He later attended music college and the Conservatory of Moldava. In 2002 Sergiu emmigrated to Canada where he now leads his own ensemble and collaborates with very diverse and talented musicians. He also teaches at the École Jazz Manouche de Montréal and recently released a multi-DVD set of instructional videos, Gypsy and East European Accordion. (You can see the trailor right here.) And this just in from the sychronicity department.... First, in case you are a little weak on the geography of Greater Romania, know that Moldava is immediately adjacent to Transylvania. Next, note that Tcha Limberger, in the course of his extensive study of Hungarian folk music known as Magyar Nota, was drawn to study that tradition where it is still performed in its purest form — in Transylvania. So I look forward to hearing what these gifted Gypsies have to share with one another and with us. Maybe we will recognize some of what we hear from them; then again, maybe it will open new musical horizons. Either way, if we are willing, we get taken to school on something at the heart of what we ourselves call "Gypsy jazz".
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If Dallas Vietty (above) will waltz you through the bistros of Paris, Sergiu Popa will show you an equally good time in towns a bit east and north of there.
Jeremie Arranger was last last here in 2008 as a member of Ensemble Zaiiti with Adrien Moignard and Mathieu Chatelain. Adrien strongly encouraged me to have him back this year for their performance with Gonzalo, since he played bass on their recently produced (as yet, unreleased) CD. It didn't take a lot of arm-twisting. You're going to love this guy.
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