Concert by the German guitarist Joscho Stephan, with Sven Jungbeck on rhythm guitar and Volker Kamp on double bass: a trio that is a fireball of gypsy jazz.
Right from the title, “Django Forever”, and the all-string band, the trio of German guitarist Joscho Stephan makes clear its dedication to gypsy swing, the ‘gypsy jazz’ that was all the rage in the 1930s and which it has always retained since then. his strong identity in the shadow of his tutelary deity: Django Reinhardt.
But listening to Joscho, the classical canon of this music suddenly sounds revitalized, as if illuminated from within: the interpretative taste seeks personal meanings in the classics of the repertoire, which suddenly emerge from their status of songs “as beautiful as they were written that there there is little to add.”
Instead Joscho adds, indeed: the aphoristic brevity of the manouche genre expands under the pressure of the impressive virtuosity of the German guitarist. Virtuoso, but also adventurous: you have to love the risk to push yourself beyond certain metronome limits, still managing to perfectly detach each note, in an incredible transparency of melodic articulation and phrasing. And if you think that the world of manouche jazz is a bit closed in on itself, you should listen to Joscho struggling with “Hey Joe”: Jimi Hendrix in gypsy sauce at a speed prohibitive for Hendrix himself.
Born in 1979, Joscho Stephan made his recording debut in 1999 (Swinging Strings, which immediately brought him to international attention). He then collaborated with Biréli Lagrène, Tommy Emmanuel, Frank Vignola, Paquito D’Rivera, Charlie Mariano, James Carter, Grady Tate.
