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CD Review: Gypsy Swing

Justin | Marseille | 04/15/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Well there I was at Tower Records browsing through the Jazz CDs trying to see if there were any Django Reinhardt CDs that I'm missing when I found "Gypsy Swing: a Nashville Tribute to Django Reinhardt" filed under Reinhardt.It was sixteen bucks or something so I said "What the heck?" and purchased it. I walked briskly to my car and popped the CD into my car stereo. And I was blown away by how good it was.Gypsy Swing features a talented group of musicians: Richard Smith, Marcel Geller, Earl Palmer, and Pat Bergeson on guitars. Aaron Till and Joe Smith doing their best Stephane Grappelli impressions on violin, Charlie Chadwick and Dennis Crouch on bass, and clarinet and accordion work by Sam Levine and Jeff Taylor respectively.Now I hadn't heard of any of these guys before, but they sure play amazingly well as an ensemble.Track listings include all of your Hot Club favorites. All of them should be familiar to any Djangoholic: Tiger Rag, Swing 39, Shine, Nuages, Sweet Georgia Brown, I'll See You in My Dreams, Swing 42, Minor Swing, Django's Castle, The World is Waiting for the Sunrise, Tears, Limehouse Blues, and finally Avalon.Check out the fantastic guitar work on Limehouse Blues, or the swinging tempo of Shine. This album definitely swings.I give Gypsy Swing a high recommendation: thumbs up To the players who made the Nashville Tribute to Django possible, Bravo!"