ONE OF THE GREATEST CHALLENGES IN THE LIFE OF A MUSICIAN IS TO BE ABLE TO DEVELOP ONE’S OWN SOUND AND STYLE.
GUITARIST STEPHANE WREMBEL HAS TAKEN THAT CHALLENGE IN HIS EFFORT TO CONTINUE THE LEGACY OF GYPSY LEGEND DJANGO REINHARDT BY BALANCING THE HEART OF THE PIONEER, YET NOT LOSE HIS OWN PERSONALITY IN THE PROCESS.
COMING TO THE WEST COAST THIS MONTH, WREMBEL WILL BE DOING A SERIES OF CONCERTS AS WELL AS WORKSHOPS IN ORDER TO SPREAD THE GOOD NEWS OF REINHARDT AS WELL AS INSPIRING STUDENTS TO CREATE THEIR OWN UNIQUE SOUND.
WE HAD A CHANCE TO CATCH UP WITH WREMBEL, WHO, AS HE WAS THE LAST TIME WE CHATTED WITH HIM, WAS FILLED WITH CREATIVE IDEAS AND DIRECTIONS, JUST LIKE HIS MUSIC.
FOR YOUR TOUR IN CALIFORNIA, ARE YOU GOING TO BE SOLO OR WITH AN BAND?
For California, I have shows with my band from France, Aurore Violque on violin. She’s the number one violin player in France. Also Simba Baumbartner, who is Django Reinhardt’s great-grandson. He’s an incredible master of the guitar; he has the “Reinhardt Touch”
It will be for a series of three shows, called “Django A Go Go”. We did it in New York and are now bringing it to LA, Ventura, Santa Cruz and Berkeley
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“Words mean nothing; you cannot play music with words. It’s impossible”
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HERE YOU ARE PLAYING WITH DJANGO REINHARDT’S GREAT GRANDSON. IF YOU HAD AN EVENING WITH DJANGO REINHARDT, WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO ASK HIM?
I don’t know; I don’t think I’d have much to talk to him about
I would just like to play with him
I would love to see him play with his band in order to absorb the energy. Then I would understand things for real
Words mean nothing; you cannot play music with words. It’s impossible
HOW ARE YOU ABLE TO PLAY THE MUSIC OF DJANGO REINHARDT WHILE STILL KEEP YOUR OWN MUSICAL IDENTITY?
Django is to the guitar what Bach is to the keyboard. It is a force.
If you practice Bach, it’s good for you. If you practice Django, it’s good for you
He possessed some very specific techniques and specific sounds, some very specific ways of manifesting harmony and rhythm. He really showed us the mechanics of the guitar, so the more that you practice Django, the better you will get on the guitar
You are you, so you are not going to lose yourself. That part of you was given at birth
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“Django is to the guitar what Bach is to the keyboard. It is a force”
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BACH HAS BEEN ABSORBED INTO OTHER MUSICAL STYLES, SUCH AS BEBOP AND ROCK MUSIC. CAN THE SAME THING BE DONE WITH DJANGO’S MUSIC AND STYLE?
I don’t function like that, so I’m not sure.
I practice music; I practiced classical piano when I was young…Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy and all of that. It was a beautiful thing and it created in me a sense of harmony. I absorbed the approach of melody and harmony. I could feel them
So, when I play, I feel how the melody is glued to the chord
When I started playing the guitar, I tried to cover some rock bands that I liked.. The Police, The Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Frank Zappa and Joe Satriani. I learned all of that and my technique got better, and my ear got better
I then studied jazz with the gypsies and then at Berklee. I listened to a lot of music and practiced a lot of things. All of these things came together to form my physical sound
***But the inner quality of one’s soul belongs to the person. A personal melody, a personal harmony, all of these things have to come from somewhere. You hear the kind of thing that touches you; the thing that is created from all of the different variables. You can play the same music again and again, but every time there are different shades.
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I’m very sensitive to the music of Fredric Chopin, to his melodies, but I’m also sensitive to the music of Pink Floyd and can see the relationship between both of them. I know what touches me in them
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CAN YOU GIVE AN EXAMPLE
For example, I’m very sensitive to the music of Fredric Chopin, to his melodies, but I’m also sensitive to the music of Pink Floyd and can see the relationship between both of them. I know what touches me in them.
There are certain things that I’m not receptive to.
The American band The Band, for example, does not touch me at all. Charlie Parker doesn’t touch me at all.
Why? Because of the way I perceive melodies, and the way I construct melodies, these things don’t agree with me
I’m not saying they have poor craftmanship; they have great craftmanship, but it’s just not the way I perceive and produce melodies.
There are certain things that we resonate and not resonate with. That doesn’t mean they are better or worse; they just resonate with a certain chemistry. We tend to get inspired from that pool of sounds and ideas for us to create our own home.
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“There are certain things that we resonate and not resonate with. That doesn’t mean they are better or worse; they just resonate with a certain chemistry”
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IS IT ACTUALLY THE MELODY, OR THE DIFFERENT FEEL OF THE SWING THAT YOU DON’T CONNECT WITH
The pulse or rhythm doesn’t affect me one bit. Of course, Charlie Parker swings like hell, but I just don’t like it. And, The Band is so tight and so good; it just doesn’t touch me. It’s not my fault; it’s not their fault. It just doesn’t happen
So I know that this is not where I’m going to look for melodies. This is not where I’m going to be inspired to find my own melodies.
SO YOU’RE LOOKING FOR INSPIRATION FROM CHOPIN, REINHARDT AND PINK FLOYD?
Those are a few examples. Those are the kind of melodies and things I like, but you can’t talk about it with words. It is a family of sounds that and ways of presenting the music, because we all have different personalities and so we all react to it in different ways all of the time.
There’s something very natural to it; it’s not rational or explainable or wanted; it is what it is.
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“Music is a total human thing, and for a moment we bond”
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YOUR PLAYING SEEMS MOST COMFORTABLE IN THE STYLE OF DJANGO REINHARDT. IS THERE A MUSICAL ENVIRONMENT, INSTRUMENTATION OR STYLE THAT YOU HAVEN’Y TRIED YET THAT YOU’D LIKE TO EXPERIMENT WITH? SUCH AS WITH AN ORCHESTRA, OR WITH MORE PERCUSSION?
Not really; I don’t really think of things in that way
Some things just present themselves, like when I did Django New Orleans, I did it with a nine piece band, it happened almost by chance.
I happened to be in New Orleans, and was fascinated by the sophistication of the music there. It was incredible, amazing and unbelievable. The sophistication of what we call New Orleans Jazz is the primal archetype, and the frame for everything else. It is just unbelievable.
We had a series of shows at Joe’s Pub. I had a friend (Scott Kettner)who was playing New Orleans drums, another one (David Langlois) was on percussion and Nick Drisoll on saxophone, etc. People who knew the music very well. The whole thing started to come together, and the people at Joe’s Pub said “Why don’t you pick a team” and we replaced the bass player with a sousaphone (Joe Correia), and that created a different sound.
They said, why don’t you put up the New Orleans setup with a singer and drums, and out of the blue it became amazing. It came out so well; it was a great project.
I then put them together for another set of concerts in another town. There was a promoter there from New York and he said “I’ll give you a full week in my club”. We didn’t even have an album! We don’t officially exist yet! It was starting to grow.
We then recorded and we now have “the team”; it’s a very original team. It was constructed by chance.
I also have a new project with Jean-Michel Pilc on piano, along with saxophone and clarinet. It’s a mix of his and my compositions with a bit of Django. It is stratospheric!
Pilc is one of the greatest guys I’ve ever played with. When I play on stage with him, it’s unbelievable what he does. He makes everything sound bigger and better
We met, and thought maybe we could have a Django/Debussy thing at Joe’s Pub. So we did that for a few days there. We just played like out of the blue. The chemistry was so strong that we decided to record together. That’s how it happens; we let things just come together.
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“what we call New Orleans Jazz is the primal archetype, and the frame for everything else”
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WHEN YOU FIRST MET WITH PILC, DID YOU TALK ABOUT WHAT TO PLAY, OR JUST START PLAYING? 1425
We exchanged ideas on the phone; he then came over and he played
We had immediate chemistry, we were so complementary.
That doesn’t mean that I would dream to play with the piano; I want to play with Jean-Michel Pilc
There’s no other pianist who plays like he plays. He has a certain personality because he is between the crazy free jazz and pure classical. All he practices is classical. We have conversations about classical music all the time and send videos to each other of this guy playing that tune, etc.
We’re always talking only about classical music, so when he comes to play the Django stuff, he goes crazy, then comes back with all of these harmonies. It’s amazing
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“The chemistry was so strong that we decided to record together. That’s how it happens; we let things just come together”
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SO WITH THIS RECORDING WITH PILC, IS IT MORE YOU ADAPTING TO HIM, OR HIM ADAPTING TO YOU? OR ARE YOU JUST BOUNCING IDEAS OFF OF EACH OTHER?
There is chemistry, so things happen. There didn’t need to be any effort.
WHILE ON YOUR TOUR IN LOS ANGELES, YOU ARE ALSO HOLDING A MASTER CLASS AT KUUMBA ON JANUARY 25. YOU HAVE SAID IT’S EASIER TO PLAY THAN TO TALK. HOW WILL YOU HANDLE THIS CLASS?
We are offering workshops. Sam Farthing will be with us. He’s a 20 year old player, a genius. Unbelievable; I saw him teach and everyone loves his teaching. He’s really clear.
There’s also Russell Welch from New Orleans. Not only is he a master of the Django playing, but of the whole New Orleans thing. Also Simba Baumgartner, Django’s great-grandson. The three of them are going to teach, and we’ll navigate that.
WERE YOU SURPRISED HOW MUCH YOU LIKED THE NEW ORLEANS STYLE OF MUSIC, AS IT IS A BIT DIFFERENT FROM THE GYPSY FEELI?
It’s not so different; it’s the same foundation.
Django is rooted in New Orleans; the songs are similar.
It’s more like when you hear it “live” and hear the counterpoint between the instruments, there is something that happens. I’ve never experienced it before; from the first moment I felt the power that came out of it.
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“When someone go to a concert, the go there to dream”
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DOES IT EVER STRIKE YOU WHILE ON STAGE THAT YOU’RE ACTUALLY PLAYING WITH A DESCENDENT OF DJANGO REINHARDT?
No, he’s my friend. We’re like family
WHAT SURPRISES YOU MOST ABOUT YOUR VIOLINIST AURORE VIOLIQUE?
It’s the absolute chemistry we have.
She produces so much beauty when she plays; these beautiful melodies!
But she has so much power; her playing is dynamite! She can bring us into a crazy zone. I’ve never played with someone that had so much power.
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“But (Aurore Violique) has so much power; her playing is dynamite! She can bring us into a crazy zone”
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THAT MUCH POWER CAN BE INTIMIDATING!
It inspires me. Nothing intimidates me.
I can admire the greatness of these people, and I want them to be seen, so I provide a platform for them.
When you play with good people everyone plays better
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“A concert is a spiritual experience. It’s from our subconscious to the peoples’ subconscious. The only people we cannot touch are those with no subconscious, those who are 100% rational in their music, but then they don’t go to concerts!”
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HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE FOR YOU TO FIGURE OUT IF YOU’RE CONNECTING WITH THE AUDIENCE?
We’re always connecting with the audience.
A concert is a spiritual experience. It’s from our subconscious to the peoples’ subconscious. The only people we cannot touch are those with no subconscious, those who are 100% rational in their music, but then they don’t go to concerts! (laughs)
When someone go to a concert, the go there to dream. You don’t go for any other reason; why are you there? To rationally listen to notes? To think about a flat 9th or a 7th chord? That’s nothing.
Music is an experience; you feel it. You engage with the musician; it’s a silent dialogue between the audience and the musician. We start the music, but we bounce off of people’s souls. We blend altogether .
Societies are put into boxes and fragmented, but we still want to have that thing where we bond with each other.
****Music is a total human thing, and for a moment we bond.
You might have people that otherwise hate each other in the street, and disagree about everything, but in that room they are all one together
I believe in that spiritual connection; it’s almost ceremonial.
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“Music is an experience; you feel it. You engage with the musician; it’s a silent dialogue between the audience and the musician. We start the music, but we bounce off of people’s souls”
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AS STEPHANE WREMBEL IMPLIES, MUSIC PROVES THE EXISTENCE OF GOD AND THE IMPOSSIBILTY OF EVOLUTION. THERE IS NO “SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST” NEED IN MUSIC, YET WE PRODUCE IT. THERE IS SOMETHING INTANGIBLE THAT CONNECTS US THROUGH MUSIC, AND HOW CAN THAT COME FROM MERE MATERIALISM?
MUSIC IS A SPRITUAL CONNECTION, THUS SHOWING THAT IT HAS TO COME FROM SOMEONE. WHEN YOU HEAR AND SEE WREMBEL’S MUSIC, YOU REMEMBER THAT THERE IS SOMETHING TO BEING A HUMAN, MADE IN GOD’S IMAGE. WREMBEL’S MUSIC REFLECTS NOT ONLY THE JOY OF DJANGO REINHARDT, BUT OF THE GOD THAT INSPIRED DJANGO, CHOPIN AND PINK FLOYD. COME TO DREAM AS WREMBEL COMES TO TOWN