French
guitarist Stephane Wrembel may not be a gypsy by definition, but his music has
all the nostalgia, joy and jangle of a true gypsy musician. Passed down from father
to son in a rich oral tradition, gypsy music paints an impressionist landscape
of the Bohemian lifestyle: traveling gypsies in horse-drawn caravans, dancers
careening around campfires, gypsy women in long skirts with carefree children
at their knees while a band of musicians plays through the night. The music of
Stephane Wrembel takes us to the gypsy camp to dance around the campfire with
the same sense of freedom, abandon and vitality as the gypsies. Raised
in Fontainebleau France, just outside of Paris, 28-year-old Stephane Wrembel began
his guitar studies as a boy, negotiating with his parents for a cheap electric
guitar. But it wasn't until his twenties that Wrembel was introduced to Gypsy
Jazz while studying at the American School of Music in Paris. "My guitar
teacher introduced me to my first gypsy jazz song. A whole new world of sound
was revealed to me the moment I heard the first notes." The song was Minor
Swing by Django Reinhardt. "I fell in love with the music and dedicated my
life to playing it," says Wrembel. A banjo prodigy at nine, Django
Reinhardt continued on to guitar with a greater passion. He overcame partial paralysis
in one hand, to be considered a musical genius, ahead-of-his-time. In the 1930s,
jazz fans and musicians traveled from all over the world to hear "the crazy
gypsy" play his masterpieces in the clubs of Paris, including Louis Armstrong
who traveled from America to sit-in with the gypsy. His musical pairing with jazz
violinist Stephane Grapelli, and subsequent discovery of jazz, in the early 1930s
had created a new sound, the melding of the swing of jazz with the lilt, gaiety
and freedom of the gypsy sound. When the German occupation of France brought Jazz
underground in the 1940s, Django became an unlikely symbol of defiance, his music
a liberation all its own, his concerts a political statement. A hero among the
gypsies as well, his music is passed down from generation to generation since
his death in 1953. The celebration of his genius continues today, with the annual
International Django Reinhardt Festival in Samois, France, honoring Django's music,
his heritage and his life. It was at this festival that Stephane Wrembel
confirmed his musical future. He first attended the festival in 1996 and was amazed
at what he was hearing, "Their approach to the guitar was really magical
and different from anything I had ever seen." He knew that to learn gypsy
guitar, he had to go to the source and wrangled an introduction at one of the
campsites near Paris. The gypsies were very welcoming, happy to give what little
refreshments they had, says Wrembel, "The gypsies of this campsite have very
little, and here they offered us food and drink. It was very, very hot and they
put us in the shade while they sat sweltering in the sun." Soon, Wrembel
began visiting the camp regularly and was invited to play at jam sessions and
also weddings. He was very comfortable with the gypsies and the gypsies enjoyed
Stephane's visits, explaining to him, "When you play, it puts sun in our
hearts." During these visits, Wrembel learned the vocabulary of the
gypsy music. The melodic lines of Django's music are laid as a base upon which
musicians improvise but with their own voice, making it unique. Wrembel also learned
the poetry and expression of this art form and most importantly the secret behind
the pure joy of the gypsy sound. "If you don't put heart in it, it is not
the gypsy sound. That is the spirit of the music," Wrembel says, adding,
"Gypsy music is an Impressionist vision of life - the atmosphere and color
being more significant than the harmony and melody. It is the living affect of
music, the atmosphere of what you are playing." While still regularly
playing in the gypsy camps, Wrembel began bringing the music away from the campfires
to festivals and clubs around France, making a name on the festival circuit performing
traditional and Django inspired gypsy jazz. His quartet, Manoque, was awarded
Best Young Band at Festival Jazz d'Avon in 1999 and in 2000. Wrembel had the honor
of performing at the Tzigane Circus for the "Festival of the Imagination",
the Jazzforville Festival and he appears every year at the Django Reinhardt Festival,
playing with the gypsies. Wrembel was impressed with the gypsies' oral tradition
of teaching music to their children. "They keep the music sincere. They pass
it from father to son, playing it within their family." Wrembel had been
giving private lessons since 1991 and had started his own music school, Musique
Pour Tous (Music for All), in 1994, teaching guitar, harmony and composition to
approximately 30 students a year. The method, based on learning the fundamentals
of the instrument before integrating more complicated studies, is still taught
at the 1999 expansion of Wrembel's school, The Institut Europeen de Formation
Aux Arts Rythmiques (European Institute for the Art of Rhythm). In 2000,
after finishing his studies in Arranging and Composition at the American School
of Modern Music in Paris, Wrembel left his students in the hands of other teachers
and moved to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music on an International Scholarship.
Recently graduated with a Professional Diploma in Performance from Berklee, Wrembel
plays regularly in New England and has just completed recording his first US album.
Though the days of the horse-drawn caravan and roving bands of gypsies
are fading into legend, the modern day gypsy numbers nearly 300,000 in Northern
France. And if you stand on the outskirts of Paris at dawn, you might hear the
last jangling notes of the last melancholic song of the night as the gypsies wheel
around the campfire one last time. |
