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AIR FRANCE Presents
DJANGO REINHARDT NY FESTIVAL
GYPSY GUITAR DYNASTY
The SCHMITT FAMILY
DORADO, SAMSON, & AMATI
‘Together for the first time in New York”
Virtuosos LUDOVIC BEIER /Accordion
PIERRE BLANCHARD /Violin
Special Guests: GRACE KELLY/Saxophone
KEN PEPLOWSKI/Clarinet…& more
NOV 7 – 12, 2017
Produced by Pat Philips Stratta
The Django Reinhardt NY Festival launched in 2000 at Birdland is in it’s 18th year. Out of the Festival came the top players, The Django Festival Allstars, who tour 2X a year and always spend a week at their home in the US, BIRDLAND. On the road, to standing ovations, they play top venues –Hollywood Bowl, San Francisco Jazz Festival, Kennedy Center, Montreal Jazz Festival and much more with original music in the style and Django favorites. This past summer at the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Bowl, critic Scott Yanow wrote “highpoint of the entire festival”!
Dad, DORADO SCHMITT, started performing in NY in 2002 when SAMSON was 21 and AMATI 5, all grown up now and together on the Birdland stage for the first time. It’s a family dynasty of enormous talent that comes from the soul of gypsy life where music is God, joined by virtuoso accordionist LUDOVIC BEIER and Grappelli protégé, PIERRE BLANCHARD, on Violin. They will put you on the edge of your seats with joy, smiles, shock you with their hot #’s and break your heart with a ballad, joined by gypsy cousin, Francko Mehrstein, on rhythm guitar and Gino Roman on Bass.
The Special guests include the young great saxist Grace Kelly Nov. 7,8, and 11 and top swinging clarinetist Ken Peploski on Nov. 9 and 10 , For a change of pace, newcomer Chris Smith will be on drums on Nov. 12th.
The music harkens back to the 30’s and 40’s in France to the Hot Club Quintette of Django and Grappelli, romantic days in ‘ol Paris with swing music in the dance halls and streets while campfires lit up the sky on the outskirts of Paris with gypsy life. Music and family was and still is King ! Hot Jazz has more than survived, is vibrant and causing a sensation all over the country.
The musicians will again be on tour as well (see schedule below) and at their NY home, Birdland Nov. 7-12 before returning home to Paris and gypsy community Forbach, France, near Germany. It’s real, it’s romantic, it’s exciting…let your heart lead the way. The Festival was co-founded by Maestro Ettore Stratta.
Paricipating sponsors: AIR FRANCE
RD WRIGHT, INC., JOHN PEARSE STRINGS
John and Joan D’Addario Foundation
The ROW HOTEL – 44th Street and Eighth Ave.
BIRDLAND, 315 W. 44th street, Full Dinner Menu, Parking nearby
Reservations: 212-581-3080 or www.birdlandjazz.com
DJANGO FESTIVAL ALLSTARS US TOUR
NOV. 3: The DAKOTA, Minneapolis, Minn.
5: The CABOT THEATRE, Berkeley, Mass
6: The KENNEDY CENTER, Wash. DC
7-12: BIRDLAND, NYC
15: UBS Atrium Series Mid-Day Concert Series, Weehawken, NJ
17: EQT JAZZ STAGE at Pittsburgh’s “Light Up Night’ Celebration
18: MANCHESTER CRAFTSMEN’S GUILD, Pittsburgh, Pa.
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This concert is made possible by support from the New York State Council on the Arts (a state agency), the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Gale Brewer, The Manhattan Borough President, The Ann & Gordon Getty Foundation, Con Edison, and individual contributions.
Bob Porter is a record producer, writer and broadcaster in the fields of Jazz and Blues. He has worked for such prominent record labels a Prestige, Savoy and Atlantic. He has produced more than 175 albums and several hundred reissues. He has contributed to DownBeat, JazzTimes, Jazz Journal (London) and currently writes a book review column for the Journal of the International Association of Jazz Record Collectors. He is a two-time Grammy winner, was awarded the Marion McPartland Award for Excellence in Jazz Broadcasting and is a member of the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame. He currently is the host of three separate radio programs on WBGO Newark.
bum also contained a tribute to the recently deceased bebop icon, Charlie Parker, with Dorough adding lyrics to Birds’ “Yardbird Suite.”
(2 CD Set
The fifth annual concert with the Alumni Jazz Big Band is a collaboration between New Jersey City University and the City of Jersey City, which recognizes the value of music and the arts for the people of the community.
The NJCU Alumni Jazz Big Band features accomplished musicians who studied at the University as far back as the late 1960s, when Professor Richard Lowenthal started the jazz program. Performing this year will be drummer Rich DeRosa (recipient of the 2014 NJCU Distinguished Alumni Award); sax players Mark Friedman, John DiSanto, Dave Nolan, Dustyn Richardson, and Dave Schumacher; trumpeters Marcell Bellinger, Vinnie Cutro, Nathan Eklund, and Freddie Hendrix; trombonists Rob Edwards, and Michael Modero; faculty members Allen Farnham on piano, Andy Eulau on bass, and Paul Robertson on percussion; former faculty member Peter McGuiness on trombone; and member of the Dizzy Gillespie Alumni All-Star Big Band, Doug Purviance, on trombone.
Jazz impresario Jack Kleinsinger was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of North Florida and is a former Assistant Attorney General of the State of New York. Kleinsinger started producing “Highlights in Jazz” — the longest-running, continuous jazz series in the history of New York City — 45 years ago. He has produced many concerts in New York City schools, colleges and prisons, and co-produced programs for the Newport and New York Jazz festivals as well as for the Jazz Festival in Nice, France. His honors and awards include the 1997 JVC Jazz Festival concert, “Thanks to Jack Kleinsinger for 25 Years of Highlights in Jazz,” the Charlie Parker Memorial Award presented at the 52nd Street Americana Festival, and a proclamation by Manhattan Borough President C. Viginia Fields designating February 5 as Jack Kleinsinger Day in the borough. 
