Django Riot!

DJANGO RIOT! EN FRANÇAIS: http://suzahn.com/django-riot-francaise                                DJANGO RIOT! IN ITALIANO: http://suzahn.com/djangoriot-italiano

Gypsy Jazz

 

 

 

 

 

 

Django Riot! a guitar-led ensemble founded by international touring artist, guitarist, vocalist and composer, Suzahn Fiering pulls songs from the Django Reinhardt repertoire, the Great American Songbook and her original compositions. Django Riot! is Manouche music also known as Gypsy Jazz or Gitane with many “hot” (or up-tempo) numbers including classics like; Blue Skies, Honeysuckle Rose, Caravan, Nuage, and more. Django Riot!, is a Franco-American experience that conjures visions of post World War II Paris in the heyday of the Jazz Age and is an international collaboration between Suzahn and top-level musicians across Europe and the US.

Jazz & Gypsy Jazz Master Classes: http://suzahn.com/education/masterclasses (scroll down for videos)

From Liverpool to London, Copenhagen to California, Samois Sur Sein (on the street where Django once lived) to Toulouse, and many places in between Suzahn is at  the helm of Django Riot!, singing, playing guitar, and swinging hard. Suzahn has presented Gypsy Jazz Master Classes twice at the Jazz Education Network Conference, and several universities on guitar techniques and on Gypsy Jazz from an educational, historical and socio-political viewpoint. Suzahn teaches Jazz & Gitane (Gypsy) Jazz to a number of students on-line across the globe and is the Director of the Nashville Django Festival, as well as the Nashville Gypsy Jam Sessions. Suzahn is the author of Jazz Guitar, The Layering Method.

As a young guitarist, Suzahn discovered Gypsy Jazz in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris, France where she stumbled upon musicians playing in a café just steps away from Le Sacre Coeur. Although she knew most of the tunes (many were from the Great American Songbook), they were somehow different. She was immediately drawn to the unique right hand rhythms (known as La Pompe) accessible chord changes, and the passion they created.

Suzahn began sitting in with her new friends every time she came to Paris, emulating their chord shapes, rhythms, and soloing style. When she asked them where they were from they laughed. “Nous sommes Romani”, they explained, “Gypsies, apartrides”, stateless. They learned to play around the fire at their encampments and the warehouses where they lived. Their music had been been passed down for generations, directly from Django himself. They don’t read or write music, they only listen to it, repeat it, and learn it. After several years of encounters with these amazing musicians, Suzahn decided to dedicate herself to learning all she could about Gypsy, Gitane, Manouche music. And the rest, as they say, is history.

 

Suzahn teaching her Gypsy Jazz Perspectives class for the Jazz Education Network Conference

Jazz & Gypsy Jazz Master Classes: http://suzahn.com/education/masterclasses