Cover of the album being discussed (courtesy of Michelle Roche Media)
A little over a week ago, jazz guitarist Stephane Wrembel released Django New Orleans, his seventeenth recording and the latest in a series devoted to the music of gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. Wrembel is one of several guitarists that have recently decided to honor the legacy of Reinhardt, who led the Quintette du Hot Club de France in Paris. Other champions of the guitarist include two that showed up on this site during the pandemic lockdown, Doug Munro and Rez Abbasi, who viewed Reinhardt’s gypsy rhetoric through the lens of South Asian traditional music.
The availability of Wrembel’s new album is a bit perplexing, if not downright frustrating. Those interested in a “physical” source can visit a Bandcamp Web page, which is selling the album in both vinyl and CD media. Much to my surprise, however, that Web page does not also account for digital downloading. Fortunately, Amazon.com has created their own Web page, which is only for MP3 download. Both of these sites are “music only,” meaning that there is no text material providing background information, even the list of performing personnel.
Fortunately, I was provided with a press release that did account for personnel as follows:
- Stephane Wrembel, musical director/guitar
- Josh Kaye, guitar
- David Langlois, percussion
- Nick Driscoll, clarinet/tenor saxophone
- Adrien Chevalier, violin
- Joe Boga, trumpet
- Joe Correia, sousaphone
- Scott Kettner, drums
- Sarah King, vocals
From a personal point of view, I was glad to see Chevalier on the list, since many (if not all) of the most interesting tracks that Reinhardt recorded involved thoroughly engaging give-and-take encounters with violinist Stéphane Grappelli. On the other hand I had a decidedly hard time with King’s vocal style, which seemed to have been inspired by Helen Kane but without the eccentricities with which Kane could deliver her “boop-oop-a-doop” style. (She was so unusual!)
Given the abundance of available recordings of Reinhardt himself, I fear that Wrembel’s efforts will not be able to drag me away from the Reinhardt CDs in my own collection.
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