A five-day celebration of the music and spirit of gypsy jazz icon Django Reinhardt energizes Whidbey Island Wednesday through Sept. 23.
DjangoFest Northwest will be packed with gypsy jazz, Eastern European melodies, Paris musette (a style of waltz), Spanish flamenco and America swing, music that Reinhardt and other musicians played in Paris cafes in the 1930s and 1940s.
Gypsy jazz, also known as gypsy swing, had its origins in France, perhaps in the late 1920s, but later was made popular by Reinhardt.
The jazz hybrid is popular in the Northwest, and the festival brings musicians and fans from several countries. The festival includes scheduled concerts plus impromptu jam sessions, workshops and local club performances.
Headliners are jazz guitar legend Larry Coryell, Dan Hicks of Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, Howard Alden and Norig, but the roster includes about 20 other acts.
Coryell was one of the guitar gods of the 1970s who can play through the musical spectrum and was a pioneer of rock-jazz fusion; Downbeat magazine dubbed him the “Godfather of Fusion.”
Although a regular headliner at New York City’s Blue Note and Birdland clubs, Coryell returned to his alma mater, the University of Washington, to teach.
He’s designed his own professional line of guitars and has written two music-related books.
Hicks started out as a drummer but added the guitar to his act. He created an acoustic combo, Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, but disbanded the group in 1973, only to revive the name in 2000.
In the 1970s, Alden played in traditional, mainstream and modern jazz groups and became a sought-after guitarist in the 1980s when he moved to New York City.
In 1991, he recorded with one of his heroes, seven-string guitar master George Van Eps; he’s been playing the seven-string ever since.
France’s Norig’s gypsy jazz journey started when she saw a film, “The Time of the Gypsies.” She plunged into the gypsy culture and its music.
Romanian musicians “adopted” her and now she’s a headliner at DjangoFest, a singer influenced by Balkan, tango and baroque music as well as gypsy music.
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