Yvonnick Prené • Un Harmonia Pour Django

The only time that Django Reinhardt recorded with a harmonica player was on May 31, 1938, when Larry Adler was joined by the Quintet of the Hot Club of France for four songs. When he was ten, Yvonnick Prené heard the Django-Adler session. A virtuosic master of the harmonica from France, Prené is usually heard in more modern settings. One of his five earlier albums features him playing duets on bebop-oriented tunes with guitarist Pasquale Grasso.

Decades after hearing the Django-Adler session, Prené returns to his early roots on Un Harmonica Pour Django, a tribute to the music of Django Reinhardt and jazz manouche music in general. He is joined by guitarist Adrien Moignard (who captures the essence of Reinhardt in his playing), rhythm guitarist Mathieu Chatelain, bassist Diego Imbert and, on four of the 14 selections, guitarist Bireli Lagréne.

The music is consistently brilliant and swinging. Prené plays with the fluidity of a clarinet on the chromatic harmonica, a much more difficult instrument than one might expect, creative inventive solos within the swing tradition. He shows throughout this set that he has a real feel for the music. Starting with an uptempo version of “Nuages” (Django Reinhardt’s most famous composition) and continuing with such numbers as “Django’s Tiger,” “Mystérieuse Parisienne” which alternates between choruses in minor and major keys, “Dark Eyes,” “Limehouse Blues,” “Djangology,” and “I’ll See You In My Dreams,” Yvonnick Prené certainly makes the case for the inclusion of the harmonica in a gypsy jazz group, particularly if it is played on this level.

Yvonnick Prené • Un Harmonia Pour Django
Minor Major Music MM-1001
www.yvonnickprene.com

Scott Yanow

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.