[Dixielandjazz] Stephene Wrembel

Marek Boym marekboym at gmail.com
Wed Nov 26 05:30:45 PST 2008


Lovely stuff indeed!  But then, I have always loved Gypsy swing.
Cheers

On 25/11/2008, Ron Wheeler <ronald_wheeler at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> Minor correction, Steve.  It's Stephane, not Stephene and here he is on
> YouTube.
>
> Stephane Wrembel performs Mont. St. Genevieve/Valse a Wasso
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhA_jKBpkZU&feature=related
>
> If you like Django, and I do, this is great stuff.
>
> Ron
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com
> > [mailto:dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com] On Behalf Of
> > Stephen G Barbone
> > Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 11:02
> > To: Ron Wheeler
> > Cc: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List
> > Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Stephene Wrembel
> >
> >
> > For those in, or visiting the NYC area, Stephene Wrembel is worth a
> > listen. Especially if you are into Django Reinhardt and/or
> > Gypsy Jazz.
> > Wrembel is one of the hidden musical wonders of New York, He's been
> > performing there for years, largely unnoticed.
> > Cheers,
> > Steve Barbone
> > www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband
> >
> > November 25, 2008 - NY TIMES - By Ben Ratliff
> >
> >
> > Swinging Through Melodies, the Gypsy Guitarist Way
> >
> > Musicians tailor their art to a room's dimensions, and Stephane
> > Wrembel's is Barbès-size. For the last several years, almost
> > since the
> > opening of this Park Slope bar in 2002, Mr. Wrembel, a Django
> > Reinhardt-inspired guitarist, has been playing weekly gigs in
> > the back
> > room. On Sunday night, with his quartet the Django
> > Experiment, he tore
> > it up as usual, exploiting his home-court advantage.
> >
> > Mr. Wrembel uses a guitar like the master's, with a small,
> > oval sound-
> > hole and an almost metallic tone. The Reinhardt subculture is a
> > curious phenomenon: it's extremely specialized — and the French-born
> > Mr. Wrembel has gained some fame within it — but no specialized
> > knowledge is required of the audience. (His slow,
> > habanera-rhythm song
> > "Big Brother," which he played in the second set, appears on the
> > soundtrack of the recent Woody Allen film "Vicky Cristina
> > Barcelona.")
> > Gypsy swing, gallant and charging, always leaning on a strong
> > melody,
> > doesn't need any explanation.
> >
> > The group brings some rock aggression and some Middle Eastern
> > tonality
> > to Gypsy swing. It's a basic small-group setup: an acoustic bassist,
> > Ari Folman-Cohen; a drummer, Richard Lee, playing an
> > international kit
> > with a dumbek, a conga, a cajon for a bass drum and small
> > cymbals; and
> > two guitarists. The leader improvised against the locomotive
> > rhythmic
> > chording of Koran Hasanagic, who sometimes soloed himself, with fast
> > fingers but a quiet sound.
> >
> > This was music mostly meted out in strict eight-bar chunks, as
> > Reinhardt and his groups would have done; though this is jazz for
> > sure, the band wasn't conjuring radical changes to any song's
> > structure. But Mr. Wrembel's solos were radical enough: long, fast,
> > intense and full of charisma.
> >
> > "A Child's Dream," a minor-key, slightly Arabic-sounding waltz from
> > his recent album "Terre des Hommes," put the emphasis on the
> > "experiment" in the band's name: the music became a cloud of drones
> > and frenetic strumming. By contrast, "All of Me," taken nearly at a
> > run, was Reinhardt up and down. If anything, it was faster and
> > noisier, reveling in well-chosen, dissonant harmonies and the
> > knifelike force of the guitar's sound.
> >
> > The Django Experiment performs every Sunday at Barbès, 376 Ninth
> > Street, at Sixth Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn; (347) 422-0248, or
> > barbesbrooklyn.com.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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