Gatsby (who preferred to remain known by his Manoucheries name)

I could not resist the temptation to interview Gatsby, a regular poster on http://www.manoucheries.com, who happens to be an incredibly good young guitar player, who in merely a few years could capture and return the spirit of Django Reinhardt. Here are a few of his recordings available on the Web:

- Improvisation
- Trial with the 40's sound
- Clouds
- Video of an improvisation on a classical guitar
- Black and white

Other musical examples were recorded by Gatsby for the interview. How to achieve such convincing results in so little time is a mystery to me. Like any other mystery, there must be a few keys and it’s in this spirit that I asked Gatsby the following questions:

1- When did you start practicing guitar ? And what did you expect at that time from such practice? Why guitar?

I started playing guitar at age 14 in 2001. There used to be (and there still are) several guitars at home, since my father used to strum a bit and so did my brother. At the time, I used to listen to the Beatles a lot, as well as to other bands with various styles, so I think I quite "naturally" turned towards guitar, which is the typical "rocker’s instrument". I was also lucky enough that there were people at home who could show me major, minor, dominant 7th chords, etc. So I got a few basic concepts this way and I could roughly play things like Red Hot’s My Friend, or Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, before I went to take lessons with a guitar teacher. I enjoyed this right away so I started spending a lot of time on my guitar to work on all the exercises my teacher was giving me, and I loved it actually. I don’t really know whether I expected anything from guitar by then but it is an age when you get opened up and interested in other artistic domains (my hobby was drawing), to try to create something concrete, so why not in music ? And at school, it was considered cool to strum two or three chords... Even more so at the high school! But at the time, I had not yet heard of Django or anything in connection with his music.

2- How did you get into Gypsy music? What motivated you to take lessons? Who are you major influences? What does Django’s music mean to you?

Blues/rock put rhythm into my first years of guitar, the first two mostly. I was fascinated by Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Clapton, BB King and many other blues players, be it traditional or with rock influences. My brother introduced me to this style and we used to play a lot together. But after a short while, I found that blues had its own limitations, especially as far as improvisation is concerned (my way to improvise) and I wanted to go elsewhere to enrich my way of playing, and simply to see and discover other things, for though as I still love blues, I cannot listen to it too much, otherwise I get saturated.

It’s then, in early 2003 that I started to get interested in Django Reinhardt, who my father had mentioned to me as being "THE great guitar player"! The first record from him that I found featured many tunes recorded in Rome in 1949, and it is through this period that I got into Django’s universe. This is the reason why I remain particularly endeared to these Roman sessions.

I also remember very well that I have listened tens of times to the little excerpt that Encarta gave in its article about Django Reinhardt: these were a few seconds of the end of the tune "I’ve Had My Moments" (1935) where Django executes an absolutely dazzling ascending chromatic scale over the final bridge, a scale that I then perceived as some kind of unknown and unreachable scale, neither achievable nor feasible.

As time went by, I had gathered a good record collection covering most of Django’s periods of age, from 34 to 53, which allowed me to discover many aspects of this music, and I still do it these days by listening and discovering some tunes over and over thanks to the Intégrale Frémeaux.

My major influences (besides Django, who happens to be an influence for those I am going to mention!) are Biréli Lagrène and Jean-Philippe Watremez. I was lucky enough to take lessons for two years with the latter, who is a fine and great specialist of Django and who brought a lot to me in terms of how to get into this music and "play in the spirit of Django", without copying him. I had first started to study Django’s music by myself for a year or two, and then I had good feedback from J.P. Watremez, and he had made such an impression over me that I obviously went on taking lessons with him.

3- You’re 21, you study languages at the university. How can you conciliate your studies with the practice of an instrument at the level you play? What is a typical Gatsby’s day?

It’s always been a problem, knowing that I have always tended to spend more time on guitar than on my homework, especially at high school. A the university, I don’t have many hours of course, so I still have time to practice, at least to keep up my technical level as much as I can, for lack of practicing in the musical sense, or looking for new harmonies, transcribing choruses, integrating new ideas, etc. Therefore, I think that I make slower progress these days than the years before.

There’s no such typical Gatsby’s day literally speaking, I can practice guitar anytime of the day, there is no special time for this, and I love practicing when I feel I have a good sound, the sound I want, and when my guitar is well under control.

4- How much time do you spend on your instrument each week? How much time have you spent on it already? And how do you split you work? Actually, I would like to know how you can achieve such a quick and efficient progression (accuracy, clean playing, touch, velocity, sound)? In the eye, what’s your secret ?

I’d say that I seldom spend more than an hour daily on my guitar, whereas it used to be several hours a day three or four years ago. I often play a few minutes several times a day, a little rhythm here and there, a little solo, play over a CD of Django over a few tunes, play together with a friend, record for manoucheries if I feel I can handle it (!), this kind of things, but not more really... I have no specific way to "practice" since I have more the impression to keep up my acquired knowledge than to work out new technical things, which I regret of course...

As far as the neatness of sound is concerned, I reckon that I really started to attach importance (and thereby to be aware of its importance) when, on one hand I started playing more and more solo work, and on the other hand I stopped using the Wegen baby for a thiner Dunlop pick, that compels the player to work his sound with more accuracy and attention. In any case, I believe that’s the way it happened to me, and now I play with various kinds of not too thick picks, from 1.5 to 2.0 mm, so as not to get used to any of them, so that I try to reach the best sound possible whichever the pick I may hold in my right hand.

Accuracy and velocity are acquired with many exercises (sometimes simple, like finger warm-ups), ascending and descending scales (just as an exercise), chromatic ascending scales (as in Django’s chorus on "Nuages" in Rome), then with a constant work of Django’s licks, with sound, rhythmic accuracy, feeling, and note’s sensitivity in mind, as much as possible...

5- How did you shape your sound to come as close as can be to Django’s spirit? Is your guitar an important part of it or is it a peculiar work that enabled you to reach this level of touch?

I think I became aware of the importance of sound by listening and scrutinizing a lot present guitarists, in particular Biréli Lagrène and Stochelo Rosenberg. To me, the neatness of their sound was more "obvious" than Django’s as far as acoustic guitar is concerned. I say "was" because I realized that these neatness and sound originated from Django himself! Hence the importance of all the guitarists and musicians who have maintained and still maintain Django’s legacy: they allow us to discover various aspects of his music that we may have not noticed otherwise. In any case, this game of mirrors with post-Django guitarists and himself helped me at the beginning. Not to mention all the less known themes and tunes that a few great musicians bring back to light. It’s by listening to Biréli Lagrène that I discovered tunes like "Hungaria", "Si tu savais", "Coquette", etc. Of course, once I was in this discovery process and perpetual reference to Django, I almost only got interested in Django.

Back to sound, it’s due to a lot of accurate downstrokes with the pick, trying to obtain as much shape and sound from the note as possible. The chords positions, the arpeggios used, the licks structures, etc. are utterly important for the final rendition. It’s not only the pick, but also the left hand touch. I try to make my left hand "bounce" as much as possible, so that it only "brushes" against the string. That’s also the way to gain speed: fretting strongly enough to produce a nice sound and moving away quickly enough to the next fret, and so on. This is obviously made easier when the guitar is very good! However, I always try to adapt to the guitar I have at hand, be it good or not, and to get the best out of it. The more you have this adaptability, the more the sound becomes a priority. Django remains the reference in this field when you see what he has made with with guitars as different from one another as the one from 1935, his Selmer from 1938, the one with a Stimer mike in Rome, the electric ones from 1947, from 1953, and all the others he had...

6- Why such a particular interest for unaccompanied improvisations, yet famous for being hard? In this style, the harmonic approach is very important in the sense that chords change rapidly, and despite of this, your music still tells a story. How do you practice these chords changes?

Django’s unaccompanied improvisations and the conditions in which they have been recorded have always fascinated me. In particular, I think of "Improvisation n°1" and "Parfum" in 1937. Django was told that he had three minutes for each, and he had asked that someone waves his hand to warn him when the time is almost over. What I like in solo improvisations is that they merely depend upon the musician : there are no other constraints than the one you set yourself, neither rhythmically, nor harmonically. It’s not to say that rhythm and harmony are not modular when playing accompanied by others, but a tune in a band is already "framed" and frames the solo player in a certain fashion. I have always admired the freedom that Biréli Lagrène takes to execute this art of unaccompanied improvisation: there’s sadness, fun, swing, jazz, classical into it, all kinds of influences that are more easily integrated when playing by yourself.

My interest for this kind of improvisation is also due to the fact that for a while I had to play by myself, for lack of people to play with. Therefore, you develop other techniques, you put other things forward, the chords changes for instance as you say, the bass notes (extremely important I think, for before the chords, they are your solo improvisation’s skeleton), the arpeggios to really show the underlying chord that is not being played, etc.

For my solo improvisations, I draw my inspiration from Django’s or Biréli’s chords sequences, from jazz standards, classical music, from anything that represent a consistent sequence, and by later trying to revamp them, to reappropriate them.

7- What is your way to acquire new musical vocabulary? Do you work with licks? Do you create your own licks? Do you leave much spare room for spontaneity in improvisation? Do you reckon you take a lot of risks?

It is by transcribing many licks from Django that I mainly acquired a vocabulary, licks that I later mixed with others from different guitar players (Biréli mostly again!) in order to do my own cooking as they say! I don’t pretend to have invented them, but perhaps to use them in my own way, with a touch and a feeling that I try to keep as genuine and personal as possible, trying not to repeat myself too much, which becomes the main hurdle at a given time, hence the need to listen and integrate other elements in my playing, the unaccompanied improvisation being a very good way to practice all of it.

I don't think I take many risks, but I always try to build my solo and play with variations with the knowledge at my disposal. I certainly do not create anything new while improvising on my own, my interest is that whoever listens to this enjoys it, and that I too enjoy it by the way...

8- What are the exercises you would recommend to practice? What do you think of arpeggios practice? Scales? What are the advices you would give to a beginner?

First of all, my dear Yann, be aware that I still consider myself as a beginner, in the sense that I have the impression I started in this style very recently, and I have a strong tendency to deeply underestimate myself as soon as I listen to or see great Gypsy guitarists (not to mention Django)... But all of this is utterly useful to fuel my practice and remotivate myself, and to be aware that there is always much more to learn, many horizons to open up.

So, to beginners in this style, I would only be able to advise to listen to Django, and to him only, to shape one’s own playing. I favour arpeggios over scales as the latter do not mean anything to me. Besides, if you carefully listen to musicians in Django’s style, it is very unusual to detect a mere identifiable fragment of scale.

9- It is a fact that you can play. That said, just as anyone else, you certainly have limitations. What are the things that you consider as problems ?

Thanks for this "fact" Yann! My limits mainly stem from the lack of time that prevents me from developing many aspects of my playing that would allow me to progress faster, as I said earlier on. There’s also the fact that I do not listen to much jazz apart from Django and two or three other guitarists, therefore many harmonic tracks remain unfathomed. I am not a big saxophone or trumpet fan, so listening to Charlie Parker or Miles Davis quickly bores me... It’s a pity since they were a major influence for Django!

So, I would say that one of my main problems and one of my main frustration is not to manage to integrate more modern jazz forms in my playing, which I would love actually!

10- Do you have a specific approach to playing music in a band? Or do you do that spontaneously? How do you set up tunes with your band? By the way, what’s your opinion about Gypsy jazz jam sessions? Do you participate to any?

I do not often play in a band or in a group. Even unusually, I mostly play in duo, with a single rhythm guitar. And I am very happy like this, because this way, we often play very spontaneously with Ma Dalton (a guy from manoucheries), my loyal rhythm guitar player.

My difficulty in general is to resist the temptation to throw too many notes that I know would sound good, but to think music. It even more difficult in live where there is much incentive to show off with the technical side, at the cost of musicality.

As far as jam sessions are concerned, I participated to a few during festivals or outside with friends, and I must confess that I’m not a big fan, excepted if rhythm guitar players around are thoughtful enough not to play too loud in order to leave enough air for the solo player, which is often not the case unfortunately. In decent conditions, I like them very much.

11- As far as your musical life is concerned, what’s your CV? What are your future projects? When will you record your first CD, eagerly awaited by the community? What are the aspects of your playing that you would like to develop, and those you do not wish to practice for the time being?

I have no musical project because I have no particular interest to become a professional musician, not even as an amateur, at least as long as I have my studies to complete. I like spontaneity in music, when you can gather to play together, live or not, without the need to be part of a specific band.

So, for now my prospects are to keep on maintaining my level and have fun playing. No CD in sight but maybe a dummy, but I don’t know when, I’ll keep you in the loop!

What I wish to develop in my playing is the exploration of other harmonic routes, and to get away from licks and automatisms in order to be in music as much as possible, and in creation. That’s roughly it... It will take time and work, yet I’m quite lazy! Sacrebleu!

12- You sometimes refer to a notion that is almost philosophical, seldom employed in a guitar context: humility. Could you please digress on this notion? How did you get to discover this side of art? This notion is not too far from other notions such at patience, perseverance, and ego. What did the practice of guitar make you discover in yourself?

I had heard of this notion of humility in music through a bluesman friend older than me, who used to repeat about some musicians: "Humility, this guy! Humility!" These are the first words that come to mind when I get out of a concert of Biréli Lagrène, when sometimes we talk a bit together, and I say to myself that you have to be someone simple and humble to produce such a music. Recently, in a report, he even said that he still hoped to learn, which is a genuine lesson as such, given the gap that separated most of us from him.

The best I can say about this "notion of humility" is that without it, I cannot see how it is possible to make good music. Being humble means forgetting yourself a bit to offer the best of what you are, and there can be no mistake about it. Humility brings authenticity, which is essential in music.

I don’t want to sound too pedantic about this topic I do not master that much but I say to myself that from time to time, a bit more humility wouldn’t hurt myself, be it in music or elsewhere.

Guitar has brought me another way to express myself. This is the reason why, the same way you can tell someone is wrong through what he says, you can tell someone plays genuinely from his music. Guitar has made me discover that I can work pretty hard in a given field, which is something I had only achieved in drawing until then.

13- What do you think of the new generation of young talented guitarists : Adrien Moignard, Chris Campion...?

I really enjoy Adrien Moignard, though I haven’t seen or heard many things from him, and he gives me a great impression. For the others, I confess that I do not listen or hardly listen to what the new generation does, even though I have seen a few of them live (like Les Enfants de Django) and enjoyed it.

Since I am always in a search phase in my style and in my sound, I prefer to turn to Django who gives me far enough work with his 800 and more recordings!

14- If you wish to speak about things that move you and that I did not mention, pertaining to Gypsy guitar or not, please go ahead!

I would simply like to mention that I have an even stronger passion for classical music, and in my eyes, Mozart’s "Requiem" and Bach’s "La Passion selon Saint-Jean" are second to none.