Djangofest History
Djangofest began in 2000 when I attended the annual Django Reinhardt Festival in Samois sur Seine, France. In response to the sentiment, ‘wouldn’t it be nice if we had such an event in the United States’, I conferred with my long time friend Robin Nolan, whom I had met while living in Amsterdam, and decided to try to make it happen. We decided to call it DjangoFest and bring European Gypsy Jazz musicians to the states to play with groups over here and share some of the excitement the music was beginning to generate. I had witnessed Pearl Django playing at the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts, in Langley, Washington, to a sold out house several months earlier so I surmised we had a good chance of raising some interest in that area. I contacted Stacie Burqua at WICA and explained to her the notion and after some persuading Djangofest Northwest was born. The first festival was in October 2001, with Pearl Django and the Robin Nolan Trio. There were two sold out shows and two sold out workshops and we had attendees from around the world. The following year we added more bands and more concerts and again had sold out concerts and workshops and it became clear that we had a success on our hands. In 2003 we added Angelo Debarre, Serge Camps and Patrick Sassois and with Robin Nolan’s continued presence it was already on its way to becoming a festival with international importance and attracting some of the top performers in the genre. In June of 2004 we added Djangofest San Francisco, which featured Robin and Angelo again and added the John Jorgenson Quintet to the Djangofest family. In Feb of 2005, in our quest to bring Gypsy Jazz to the public’s attention, Djangofest was held in Laguna Beach, CA. In 2005 and 2006, with three festivals running, in addition to our regulars we continued to work with artists such as the Ferre Bros, Tim Kliphuis, Hot Club of San Francisco, Dan Hicks, David Grisman, Stephane Wrembel, Kruno, Alfonso Ponticelli, Howard Alden, Bruce Forman, Marc Atkinson, Whit Smith, Andreas Oberg, Samson Schmitt, Tchavalo Schmitt, Dorado Schmitt, Opus 4, and many others. In 2007, in addition to our festivals, where we presented such great names as Larry Corryell, Mimi Fox, Ludovic Biere, Fishtank Ensemble, 3 Leg Torso, Sebastien Giniaux and the incredible Norig, we added a new feature, Djangofest on Tour, a unique opportunity for Gypsy Jazz fans, players and enthusiasts who can't make the journey to one of the Fests to partake in the magic and excitement in a venue near home. This year, 2008, in addition to our usual venues we are going to Crested Butte, Colorado, Sep 19-21, for DjangoFest Colorado. We've introduced some more fine artists including, Pere Soto, Lulo Reinhardt and Adrien Moignard, possibly the finest young guitarist on the planet. And of course the big event of the year is DjangoFest Northwest with the great Rosenberg Trio, their first US perfromance in over ten years. We've added membership programs for all the festivals, so if you are interested in seeing these events continue on, please check out and take advantage of the membership info on the various websites.
It's been a great ride so far and I think we are all looking forward to seeing where the road leads.
Nicholas Lehr June 2008
DjangoFest Executive Director
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