Guitar
Sami Arefin started attending Django Camp in 2011 while still a music student at Goucher College in Baltimore, where he quickly established himself as the resident expert on Gypsy jazz. Now he and a small posse of Djangophiles serve the same role for Charm City at large, where they are responsible for having created quite a jazz manouche scene.
He is by now one of our longest-serving teachers. That’s because people really like working with him. This video gives you a sense of Sami’s knack for providing content that is at once interesting and accessible:
Over the many years Sami has played this music, he has worked with a lot of other talented artists, many of them artists who have taught and performed here at Django in June. A short list would include Michael Joseph Harris, Lisa Liu, Jason Anick, Zach Valentine, and Debi Botos. Sami works frequently with another star of the Baltimore region’s GJ community, Sam Farthing. Here they are with Zach playing, “Just One Of Those Things”.