L'assortiment

In Paris in the mid 1930s Django Reinhardt and his band The Quintet of the Hot Club of France created a completely new and still vital style of jazz, known today as gypsy jazz or jazz manouche. Rhythm guitars replaced piano and drums in the rhythm section, and instead of horns, guitar and violin became the primary solo instruments. Soon thereafter brilliant accordionists like Gus Viseur and Tony Murena followed their lead and shifted their repertoire from musette to swing, and they also engaged guitarists as their pulse keepers. 100 years after Django Reinhardt's birth gypsy jazz is more popular than ever. However, art is bound to evolve to stay fresh. Nowadays gypsy jazz guitarists play electric archtops as often as acoustic guitars, and horns and drums are quite common in the line-ups. The foundation of this music hasn't changed though: it has the energy, swing and originality of jazz mixed with French elegance and gypsy flamboyance and emotionality. The time span of tunes in Jazz Partout's L'assortiment covers nearly 100 years. Because of his centennial, we included five compositions of Django Reinhardt, and in addition there are musette waltzes, swing standards, one classic French chanson, plus some new gypsy jazz compositions. It all made up a versatile assortiment.