Throughout his career, Stephane Wrembel has often played his Django Reinhardt-inspired guitar in unusual settings, most notably on his series of recordings called Django Experiment. In 2022 he teamed up with another grouping of musicians that use the name of Django New Orleans. For their second recording, Django New Orleans II, Wrembel was given a challenge that he accepted.
His friend Francisco Romero offered to finance the project if Wrembel recorded eight specific songs plus two originals based on certain themes. For this set, the guitarist gathered together the current members of Django New Orleans: violinist Adrien Chevalier, rhythm guitarist Dion Berardo, Wrembel’s longtime reed player Nick Driscoll (mostly heard here on clarinet), trumpeter Joe Boga, Steven Duffy on sousaphone, drummer Scott Kettner, David Langlois on washboard, and singer Sarah King.
The result is a wide-ranging set of colorful music. The program begins with the haunting tango “Libertango” and then launches into a surprisingly uptempo version of “La Vie En Rose.” Sarah King’s vocals are quite appealing on both songs and the latter number has excellent violin, trumpet and guitar solos.
Other selections include the uptempo waltz “La Foule” which is very much in the 1930s gypsy tradition, the Latin jazz of “Karl-Bertil Jonssons Julafton,” two exotic numbers by French songwriter Serge Gainsbourg that have the gruff-voiced Wrembel’s first-ever recorded vocals, Jobim’s “Waters Of March,” a unique New Orleans transformation of “Nature Boy” with sousaphone and drum rolls, and the guitarist’s two originals: “Holden Caulfield” which has infectious rhythms and the mysterious-sounding “Menage A Trois.”
While not for Django Reinhardt purists, Django New Orleans II gives listeners a taste of how Django might have sounded today if he had retained his classic sound and been open-minded enough to explore different idioms. This program will keep one guessing.
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Django New Orleans II
Water Is Life WILXXI
Stephanewrembel.com and www.amazon.com
Since 1975 Scott Yanow has been a regular reviewer of albums in many jazz styles. He has written for many jazz and arts magazines, including JazzTimes, Jazziz, Down Beat, Cadence, CODA, and the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, and was the jazz editor for Record Review. He has written an in-depth biography on Dizzy Gillespie for AllMusic.com. He has authored 11 books on jazz, over 900 liner notes for CDs and over 20,000 reviews of jazz recordings.
Yanow was a contributor to and co-editor of the third edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz. He continues to write for Downbeat, Jazziz, the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, the Jazz Rag, the New York City Jazz Record and other publications.
