Tag Archives: Django

Jack Soref Trio at Primavera Ristorante August 23, 2018

Posted on by

Jack Soref Trio

Jack Soref guitar, Jim Guttman bass, Jameson Stewart guitar,

The last decade has seen a flowering of Django Reinhardt’s legacy, with bands and festivals popping up internationally.  The Jack Soref Trio is an exciting gypsy jazz ensemble. Reaching both forward and back in time, it pays homage to the music of Django Reinhardt, while simultaneously enriching the tradition with its own compositions, arrangements and swinging improvisations.

Jack on o-hole guitar

Jack Soref

 

Jack is one of the pillars upon which Boston’s considerable gypsy jazz scene rests.  A Wisconsinite, graduated from Berklee, started hanging with European itinerants, moved to France in order to live and play with them. (He still wears their weird pointed shoes.) He has performed with such gypsy jazz luminaries as Adrien Moignard, Gonzalo Bergara, violinist Tim Kliphius and the great German Sinto musician Titi Bamberger.

 

 

 

also on o-hole gypsy guitar

Jameson Stewart

 

Jameson Stewart is originally from California, but has been performing on the East Coast in many different musical styles, on many different instruments, for the last 8 years. When Jameson’s not on the road, he can be found playing Django style guitar with Jack on Tuesdays at The Burren in Somerville. Just about every other night of the week, he can be found playing Upright bass, bass guitar, Tenor Banjo, mandolin, or guitar, somewhere in New England.

 

 

 

 

Jim bowing string bass

Jim Guttman

 

Bassist Jim Guttmann has played everything from klezmer to classical — and most styles in between.  He’s been with the Klezmer Conservatory Band (KCB) for 38 years. The KCB was almost single-handedly responsible for launching the modern klezmer music revival. Guttmann has remained with the group ever since, appearing on all ten of their recordings; touring Europe, Australia, and America; and performing and recording with Joel Grey and Itzhak Perlman.

 

 

 

The Band kicked off the first set with “Rosetta”-

Rosetta

They also played tunes by modern Django Style guitarists like “When I was a Boy” written by Spanish guitarist Biel Ballester, or “For Sephora” a composed by Sinti (the gypsy tribe Django comes from), virtuoso Stochelo Rosenberg

Each set included many of Jack Soref’s original compositions like the moody, “Rain on the Terrace” about the  Memorial Union Terrace in Madison Wisconsin.

Swing numbers like “It Might be True”, and it’s sister tune “Some Things Are”
His high energy waltzes “Valse Jacek” “Valse Kilsyth” or the uptempo, minor key, romp “Stompin at Atwood’s”

Guitarist Jameson Stewart was featured playing the lead on the band’s arrangements of
“It Had to be You” by Jones, & Kahn and Django Reinhardt’s “Artillerie Lourde”

When he plays at the Primavera, Jack always likes to dedicate a tune associated with Sidney Bechet, to Stan and Ellen McDonald. Tonight, it was “Georgia Cabin”

The band also played some sweet, classic tunes like “Me, Myself, and I” by Gordon, Roberts, and Kaufman (on which Jack sang in front of an audience for the first time)
“I’ve Got a Feeling I’m Falling” by T. ‘Fats’ Waller and “Hummin’ to Myself” by Fain, Magidson, and Siegel.

Jack is here at Primavera on the 1st Thursday of every month with The Blue Horizon Jazz Band.  Join us September 6th?

Videos and pictures by Marce

Jack Soref Trio at Primavera Ristorante, February 25, 2016

Posted on by

by Peter Gerler

guitar, upright bass, guitar

Jack Soref Trio, Jack, Greg Toro, Jameson Stuart

Millis, MA, 2/25/16. This lovely town is a schlep from where I live in Newton. On a cold February night, it took a solid hour to get to Primavera restaurant, where the young gypsy jazz guitarist Jack Soref brought his trio to play for an appreciative audience of perhaps 18 people. But let it be said: Jack’s not in it for recognition. He’s in it for the tradition.

“Gypsy jazz” appeared in the world largely through the genius of the French guitarist Jean “Django” Reinhardt, whose iconic sound parallels that of Louis Armstrong in American jazz. (Django wept when he first heard Armstrong. “He was like a large animal, mute and dazed in the blaze of the sun,” a colleague recalled.)

Interestingly, the word “tradition” usually evokes older, simpler styles—folk and roots music, country melodies, even the old brass band marches. In the case of gypsy jazz, the prognosis is denser. To play it right, you have to practically begin as a virtuoso.

The best players are of European manouche extraction. They grew up with it, around the caravans. There was dancing, which fueled the rhythm. Whereas American folk-music guitarists might first learn a simple G chord, youthful gypsy players sought to articulate Django’’s lightning-fast, intricate melodies with full, complete tone. Sort of like being born as Jascha Heifetz. Or as Sisyphus.

made by luthier Dan Hunt of Worcester

Jack Soref on custom made Grande Bouche guitar

 

Jack, a Wisconsinite, dove right in. Graduated from Berklee, started hanging with European itinerants, moved to France in order to live and play with them. (He still wears their weird pointed shoes.)

It’s a reversal: when American jazz came around with its je-ne-sais-quoi swing, the world turned toward New Orleans and Chicago. Django and his cohort even pulled inspiration from the seminal American guitarist Eddie Lang. Today, American “gypsy” players model themselves after the Parisians.

 

also made by luthier Dan Hunt of Worcester

Jameson Stuart on custom made Petite Bouche guitar

Greg Toro on double bass

Greg Toro on double bass

Soref’s trio is well on their way up the mountain. Their set swelled with standards from both sides of the pond—Dream of You, Sweet Georgia Brown, Menilmontant, Coquette--played with musicality and adventure.

On Valse Jacek, listeners were practically delivered to European soil. On All Of Me, (“Take my lips, I want to lose them”), Jack’s guitar whined, “Take me already!” The rhythm guitarist Jameson Stewart and the bassist Greg Toro held down a strong foundation.

All of Me

On Nuages, the veteran swing vocalist Mollie Malone sat in, singing in rippling French with ache, regret, and hope.

The last decade has seen a flowering of Django’s legacy, with bands and festivals popping up internationally. (It comes alongside the current resurgence of swing dance among Millennials.) In any case, the music has its addicts, young and old, whose life goal is to reincarnate as Django. They talk incessantly of altered chords and alternate fingers, and of their guitars, many of which they custom-order hand-made. But it’s not so much the technique: they have heard the downstage, ringing pompe of Django Reinhardt.

###

Photos and Videos by Marce