Sunday, February 22, 2009

Champagne at the Chope - Gypsy Jazz in Paris at the Puces



Django Rules in Paris! - Our beloved gypsy Chope has reopened to join all the other great jazz clubs in Paris after 4 long months of renovation...yesterday, all the regular faces were there, toasting the spirit of Django with champagne. even the sometimes-taciturn bartender was all smiles, as Ninine Garcia stepped back into his usual corner and served up his trademark manouche guitar.


as for the renovation, well...the tiny tattered bar area is larger, but the shiny new flatscreen televisions, so that everyone can watch the music from every corner of the room, seem like a good idea taken too far. and the walls are now decorated with some beautiful guitars behind kitsch glass vitrines, which takes some getting used to. everything's a bit too new right now...but that'll wear off soon enough, when the crowds hit, this summer. on the upside, the red wine is a thousand times better than it used to be, there's now more space for cutting the rug, and the toilets, ah, they really did need some renovating.

any weekend, head up to the Puces de St-Ouen, and have a drink at the Chope des Puces,122 rue des Rosiers, music every Sat & Sun, 2pm - 7pm (free--contribute to the hat)

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Django Symphony




Now this is going to be a cool addition to the live jazz concerts in Paris..

Symphonic Django/ Django Symphonique is the first ever edition of the legendary Django Reinhardt´s music orchestrated for symphony orchestra. The idea originated from Jon Larsen and was developed in cooperation with the festival Christianssand String Swing. The arrangements are by Per Ekdahl and were first performed live by Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra featuring Florin Niculescu (RO) and Stochelo Rosenberg (NL) as soloists.


check out more info here at their website


and as a plus, its on at the Cirque d'Hiver - an amazing historic building in the middle of the city.