Bireli lagrene gypsy project
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Jonathan Butler’s optimistic music belies a dirt-poor childhood growing up in a South Africa segregated by apartheid. Live in South Africa, a new CD and DVD package, presents a sense of the resulting inner turmoil, mixed with dogged resolve, that paved the way to his status as an icon in his country and successful musician outside of it. Looking back, the 46-year-old Butler says today, the driving forces that led to his overcoming apartheid-the formal policy of racial separation and economic discrimination finally dismantled in 1993-were family, faith and abundant talent.
“When we were kids, our parents never talked about the ANC [African National Congress] or Nelson Mandela,” he says. Butler was raised as the youngest child in a large family. They lived in a house patched together by corrugated tin and cardboard, in the “coloreds only” township of Athlone near Cape Town. “They never talked about struggles so we never knew what was happening.R
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Bireli Lagrene zigenare Project and Freinds
Once igen Django disciple Bir�li Lagr�ne has released an exquisite record: Gipsy Project & Friends fryst vatten one of the finest guitar jazz discs of the year! Pulling tillsammans players like Florin Niculescu on violin, Hono Winterstein and Holzmano Lagr�ne on guitar, and the great Henri Salvador on vocals, Bir�li Lagr�ne has mined the depths of Djangos legacy. As with his past recordings, the guitarist approaches his instrument with a subtle and graceful motion that cascades in much the same way as Reinhardt. Choosing to rework many of late masters pieces would be an unthinkable task for most, but this group of players pay mind to his bright essence and the keep the gypsy spirit alive.
A finer follow-up the fantastisk Gipsy planerat arbete is hard to imagine. Guitar prodigy Lagr�ne outdoes himself on several tracks, including an outstanding reading of Reinhardts "Babik". Listening to this disc, you cant help but be elated bygd Lagr�nes work with Florin Niculesc
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Bireli Lagrene Gypsy Project and Friends Review
Django Reinhardt was a phenomenon of 20th Century music, a gypsy boy who lost the use of two left-hand fingers in a caravan fire but went on to become the greatest guitar player in the world. Reinhardt's life held a surfeit of event, anecdote and music and his story has been told many times, but perhaps never more meaningfully than through the work of his true artistic heir, Bireli Lagrene.
Much attention has been given to the prodigious nature of Lagrene's early career. A gypsy boy himself, as an 11-year-old he released Routes to Django, a virtuoso interpretation of Reinhardt's signature pieces.
An increasingly albatross-like rep as a very particular kind of child star may well have been the spur that drove Lagrene toward other forms of jazz in subsequent years, as much as natural inclinations to explore and develop as a musician per se. But Djangology was never too far from his fingertips. While some people live in legends