Guitar
Fapy Lafertin is one of the most celebrated and influential Gypsy guitarists of the last 50 years. Born in Courtraie (Belgium) he started playing music at the age of 5. Like most Sinti musicians, Fapy started his musical career playing in a family band—his father on violin and his brother on rhythm guitar. He started playing the Hot Club de France repertoire when he joined the orchestra of violinist Piotto Limberger (Tcha’s grandfather). He also toured with his uncle, the late Eddie Bamboula Ferret. Between 1975 and 1985 Fapy played alongside Koen de Cauter, Vivi Limberger and Michel Verstraeten in the highly influential band, “Waso” — a group that brought renewed world-wide attention to Django’s music in general and Fapy’s skill as a guitarist in particular.
After leaving “Waso”, Fapy embarked on a solo career, playing with big bands and well-known jazzmen such as Charlie Byrd, Scott Hamilton, Al Casey, Benny Waters and Milt Hinton and teamed up with Stéphane Grappelli at the Glasgow jazz festival. In 1985 he formed his own quintet in the Netherlands, which he modeled upon the original Quintette Hot Club de France. This group has featured various Dutch instrumentalists, among them violinist Rudi Brink, Joop Hendricks and Tim Kliphuis.
Beginning of the 90’s, Fapy joined forces with Bamboula Ferret composing songs in the Romani language. About a decade later they started to record these originals, combined with some French songs that Bamboula knew from his youth. In 2011 the album Ou Welto Risella (the world is turning) was released, featuring these enchanting songs by the voice of Bamboula.
With the British Quartet Lejazz, Lafertin released two iconic albums: ‘Swing Guitars’ (1994) and ‘Hungaria’ (1996.) The video below is from those historic recording sessions. (Note the participation of Dave Kelbie on rhythm guitar. He’s also with us at DiJ this year!) Fapy’s artistic partnership with Le Jazz lasted ten years, hundreds of appearances Europe-wide, a dedicated following of admirers from all over the globe, and an influence which in the early 1990’s took this little-performed but widely-loved style of music from performances in clubs, pubs and wine bars to concert stages throughout the UK and the continent of Europe.
Since then, Lafertin has continued touring, recording and growing as an artist. For example, among the Sinti jazz repertoire one might expect of him, he now plays Brazilian choro and Portuguese fado on the 12-stringed Portuguese guitarra. An exquisite improvisor, master technician and giant in the Gypsy jazz tradition, we’re honored to have Fapy Lafertin with us at Django in June this year.