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A legendary meeting with a group of Gypsy musicians led to the formation of the Quintette Du Hot Club De France and a legendary partnership with Django Reinhardt - probably the most famous Jazz partnership outside of the United States, and the most famous Jazz String Band in the World.David Grisman grew up in New York with a trombonist father, but listening to the mandolin recordings of Bill Monroe as well. These musicians feed off each other. If you don't already know about Stephane Grappelli and his position in the history of Jazz - you should. Grisman has written that it was unsettling to be "blown away on stage every night by a guy playing MY instrument - but at least he was playing MY music." Bass virtuoso Rob Wasserman anchors the group. You just HAVE to hear this. He blended his diverse musical interests to create "Dawg" Music - a string-band Bluegrass-flavored jazz.The Grisman band circa 1981 included the still teenaged prodigy Mark O'Conner on guitar (although Mark breaks out his awesome fiddle to play a duet with Steph that is absolutely blistering hot). (Rice was replaced by O'Connor for the tour).Although I have listened to dozens of discs of both Grappelli and Grisman I don't think I have ever heard either more inspired.
It turns these icons into gods. A formally trained musician in Paris, his interests were in the Hot Jazz that in the 1930s was little practiced outside of the United States. This can turn mediocre musicians into something worth listening to. Young mandolin monster Mike Marshall is in this band. Darol Anger was the usual Grisman violinist, but when Grisman was approached to provide the music for the film "King of the Gypsies" he immediately thought of the man who had the greatest living understanding of gypsy music - the legendary Grappelli.After recording the soundtrack (with Guitar Monster Tony Rice) they embarked on a brief tour which included the concerts where this live album was recorded. As Grisman wrote in the liner notes - standing next to Grappelli on stage made him feel like he was standing next to Zeus, tossing lightning bolts.The tracks are "jazz greatest hits" like "Shine" and "Tiger Rag" and "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "Satin Doll" and "Misty" with a medley of "King of the Gypsies" music. While these tracks are on it is as if the entire musical world stands still.I cannot recommend this highly enough.
Grappelly was timeless and delivers an excellent set of performances in this video. Nice job.
This album is a great combination of two amazing musicians. I love it. It was nice and cheap too, especially for such a quality album.
Had this LP for years and am glad to have the CD now. Wonderful.
I've been listening to both of the recordings David Grisman made with Stephan Grappelli - this one - the live session, and 'Hot Dawg' - the equally incredible studio session with Eddie Gomez on bass on a number of tracks, since their release in the early '80's. This is the type of music to which one never stops listening - always exciting - though easy and smooth - always new shades of the riffs revealed. I was gratified to see this recording as high up in Amazon's ratings after all these years - sort of verifying for me by way of vox populi what I've felt for over a quarter century now - this was one of the best groups ever - emminently listenable - fun - and they really cook.
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