The Whole Music Experience

Django Reinhardt, Wikipedia (This excerpt comes from chapter 12, "Catching the Coletrane" of Whole Music Soul Food for the Mind Body Spirit ) Jazz Medicine  The story of jazz contains just as many tragedies as it does moments of elation.  Jazz musicians in general have personal history and early African-American jazz players in particular, carried the added weight of injustice, racism, illness, and addiction in the competitive music industry.  Societies in the west color any genre of music hailing from Africa with prejudices.  Early jazz as it emerged in the US and arrived in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was viewed as a novelty in some cases, and primal in other cases giving listeners the license to adopt destructive practices (consumption of alcohol, loosening of sexual morals and exploring the seedier side) as portrayed in Jeffrey H. Jackson’s book, Making Jazz French . However, even local-grown European musicians harn...

Bratsch Urban Bratsch World Village I was in the mood for gypsy jazz just when the French group Bratsch’s new recording Urban Bratsch arrived in my mailbox.   A delicious mix of klezmer, gypsy jazz, German theater (Brecht/Weill), and Eastern European music, this quintet delivers a whopper of a recording. It is as eclectic as Lo-Jo, and as rousing as Les Yeux Noirs (also from France).   These guys show what passions are possible played on acoustic instruments (guitar, accordion, violin, double bass, and clarinet). The opener Sirba Din Joc De Constanca/Hora certainly starts off a rousing listening experience with its gypsy violin.   I expect to hear one of those wild and crazy Eastern European zithers conversing with the violin, but in all honesty, this music fills the space just fine.   Francois Castiello’s accordion resembles a harmonium on the ballad Scetate with Nano Peylet’s klezmer clarinet singing mournfully along with the raspy vocals...