Django à la Créole (2007)
This is repertory music of the best kind: informed by sincere study, yet never derivative; playful, more so than reverent; aimed at extending, not rehashing, a legacy."
Larry Blumenfeld –
The Wall Street Journal
Purchase Options:
Track Listing:
- Douce Ambiance
- Farewell Blues
- Dinette
- I Know That You Know
- Manoir de Mes Rêves
- Low Cotton
- Nuages
- Mélodie au Crépuscule
- Insensiblement
- Tears / Djangology
Total Time: 50min
About This Music:
I first met Dave Kelbie at a private gig in London at the top of the Gherkin Tower. I told him the story of Barney Bigard, the Creole clarinetist from New Orleans, coming to Paris with Duke Ellington in 1939 and recording with Django Reinhardt, the eminent guitarist.
Sure, that impromptu session only yielded five songs, but they were all we needed to imagine a project that sought to "Creolize" Django's music with Afro-Caribbean rhythms and spice up the "hot club" feel with the flavor of New Orleans. David Blenkhorn and Sebastien Girardot had been working with me in Paris, and loved the concept.
During our first U.K. tour together, the quartet spent a few days at a friend's place in a small village near Dorset to work out the songs for this first CD. Then, we recorded at a studio in nearby Wales that was once an old flour mill. And that's how Django à la Créole was born.
Album Info:
Release Date: May, 2008
Evan Christopher – Clarinet
Dave Blenkhorn – Guitar
Dave Kelbie – Guitar
Sebastien Girardot – Double Bass
Recorded at Studio Felin Fach (Abergavenny, Wales) by Dylan Fowler
Produced by Dave Kelbie & Evan Christopher
