The Town Hall Presents DJANGO A GOGO on Saturday, May 5, 2018

Guitarist Stephane Wrembel caps Django A GoGo 2018, his week-long celebration of gypsy jazz master guitarist Django Reinhardt, with a spectacular all-star concert at The Town Hall on Saturday, May 5th, 2018 at 8pm.

Perhaps best known for "Bistro Fada", from the GRAMMY-winning soundtrack to Woody Allen's 2011 Academy winning film, Midnight In Paris, Wrembel will be sharing the stage with some of the best contemporary exponents of Reinhardt's style including Stochelo Rosenberg, Simba Baumgartner (Reinhardt's great-grandson), Paulus Schafer, Nick Anderson, Thor Jensen, Pierre "Kamlo" Barré, Sara L'Abriola, Olli Soikkeli and violinist Daisy Castro. Special guest for the Town Hall show will be the brilliant bluegrass mandolin player Sam Bush.

A master of Reinhardt's style, Stephane Wrembel has several CDs on his own label, exploring and updating his legacy: The Django Experiment I, and The Django Experiment II, both released in 2017, and his latest release The Django Experiment III. The New York Times writes: "Perhaps the most creative improviser in Gypsy jazz today, Mr. Wrembel plays the guitar with a rich and colorful lyricism."

For Wrembel, who started Django A GoGo as "a very small event" in 2004, soon after moving to New York, "the question has always been how to pay tribute to someone like Django," he said.

"This is not a retro thing. I don't have any nostalgia," he noted, emphatically. "Django to me is like a Debussy, a Ravel or a Chopin. You don't need to put on a wig to play Mozart. That's not what Mozart is about, his music is eternal. I don't pay tribute to Django Reinhardt the guy, but to his music. Something special went through him and whatever it was, it's still alive in the music and it can be expressed in so many ways."

It's in that spirit that Wrembel called on the GRAMMY-winning bluegrass mandolin player Sam Bush to be part of the celebration. Dubbed "the Father of New Grass", Bush has established himself as roots royalty, revered for both his solo and sideman work, which includes time with Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett and Béla Fleck.

"I know his music and he's a perfect fit," said Wrembel. "Of course, the guitar and the mandolin are cousins -- and then bluegrass has a certain intention that connects with Django's music. There is something about life, nature and Django's music, perhaps it's the playing under the stars, around the fire. So while these genres have different repertoires, the intention is the same. But you need the right people to make that connection."

"Stochelo Rosenberg, Simba Baumgartner, Paulus Schafer are the greatest players in the world in the Django Reinhardt style, so Sam is going to play some Django Reinhardt music. But then, these Django masters are also going to play a few bluegrass and Americana songs. So you'll get to hear the interaction between these two worlds. "

Anchoring the concert, Wrembel will be appearing with his band, featuring long time collaborators Thor Jensen on guitar; Ari Folman-Cohen on bass and Nick Anderson on drums.

Born in Paris and raised in Fountainbleau, the home of Impressionism and Django Reinhardt, Wrembel first studied classical piano, beginning at the age of four. But in his mid-teens, he discovered that he had an affinity for guitar. A Pink Floyd fan, he "spent hours learning David Gilmour's style," he said. "So I had a classical background, a passion for rock music, and then I found out about Django. I fell in love with the very strong impressionist feel in his music."

Reinhardt was a Sinti, (a Roma group from Western Europe) and his style is rooted in Sinti music. Not a Gypsy himself, Wrembel immersed himself in Sinti culture, spending "six, seven years going to the camps, playing for Gypsy weddings, parties, playing with Gypsy friends," he said. "By going there I started learning what it really means to play Sinti style guitar. I learned from the masters, from Angelo Debarre and Serge Krief, and I played in the campsites a lot. That's how you learn this music, because it's a specific to a culture. Music is not only the notes. Without the culture, something is missing."

Wrembel later enrolled in Boston's Berklee College of Music in 2000, from which he graduated summa cum laude two years later, recorded his debut album, Introducing Stephane Wrembel, and moved to New York in 2003. He has since recorded four more albums (Woody Allen also used "Big Brother," from his third album Barbes-Brooklyn, in his 2008 film Vicky Cristina Barcelona) and also started Django A GoGo. The camp was a success, and while it started modestly, "every year it grew. Then we took it on the road. Now we have a whole guitar camp!"

To kick off the Django a GoGo festival, WBGO Radio 88.3fm ("Jazz 88") will air a special studio performance and interview with Stephane on Thursday April 26 at 8:30am.

The performance at the Town Hall on May 5th is the culminating event in the Django a GoGo 2018 festival, which includes a music camp, jam sessions and live showcases in Wrembel's home base of Maplewood, New Jersey from May 1st through May 6th.

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