www.cafe-music.com : larry urbon :: colleagues & links :

Noreen Mola – Chanteuse, artiste.

Giani Lincan – Cymbalom artiste, Giani leads his “Lincan Gipsy Ensemble” and lives near The Hague, The Netherlands. He’s Romanian, and plays a lot with the great Romanian accordionist Ionica Minune (who lives in Paris). Giani has to be the best on his instrument in the world. Jazz, classical, Hora, everything. A sweetheart of a guy, too. Read my review | Favorite Performances

Jacques Mazzoleni – Jacques is “the man” in the USA for obtaining vintage Selmer styled guitars, as well as new models from fine contemporary luthiers of Europe.

François Rousseau – François is a gypsy swing guitarist and friend from Montréal. He is probably the most fanatical gypsy guitar fan in the Western Hemisphere – and extremely knowledgeable. He’s also a fine player.

Paul Hostetter – Paul lives near Santa Cruz, CA. He is one of the most knowledgeable luthiers in the world on the subject of Selmer styled guitars.

Norman Plankey – Norman is my friend and fellow gypsy jazz guitarist here in CT. Norman also plays with his traditional band “The Fiddleheads”.

Jeff Eyrich & Dave’s True Story – Jeff is my bassist, a great friend, and the pulse of the very cool retro swing band from NYC “Dave’s True Story”. They’ve been on national TV, “Mountain Stage”, and have their songs in the great movie Kissing Jessica Stein.

John Le Voi – John started making guitars in 1970 and from about 1978 onwards John has become a very well known make of Selmer / Maccaferri style guitars as played by Django Reinhardt and the Hot Club De France.

My friend Raquel Bitton – chanteuse.

Mark Levesque and Judy Handler – Mark and Judy are guitarists from the Hartford CT area, and do more gigs than just about anyone I know. They are a very nice duo, all styles – classical, jazz, Brazilian, and European. Their CD Acoustic Blend is beautiful.

Pierre Bensusan – is my favorite guitarist of all time, fingerstyle, pickstyle, doesn’t matter. No one else has ever played the way Pierre does. And not just because he’s working in DADGAD tuning, either. If you don’t have any CD’s by Pierre, get some.

Mary Honcoop – We lost the sweetest lady on the planet in November 2004, the Netherlands, after a long illness. Mary was an authority, expert, everything, on gypsy swing, and was extremely close to the Rosenberg Trio, the great Dutch gypsy swing ensemble. Mary and gypsy swing in Western Europe were inseparable items. She was a mother to many musicians all over Europe and North America.

Alain Cola – is the head of Dell’Arte Guitars in San Diego. Dell’Arte is doing very well, thanks to Alain’s vision & dedication to gypsy swing music, and of course to the building of quality guitars. He knows everything about Gypsy Jazz in France, and is a fine player with the Hot Club of San Diego. And so helpful!!

Scot Wise – Scot is a guitarist, friend, and authority on all-things-gypsy-swing. He lives in Charlotte NC. He’s done so much for MY own gypsy swing education!

Paul Neri – Luthier, Paul lives and works in Clinton CT. If I need work done on my acoustic guitars, I take them to Paul.

GypsyJazzGuitar@YahooGroups.com – If you want to connect to the world of gypsy swing guitarists, join this group. It’s free. You can spend hours arguing online with musicians around the world about who plays faster, or whose guitars are better!

The Hot Club Swingpage – A great source – Steve Royall’s site. The ‘bible’ of gypsy jazz web sites.

Québec City’s Festival d’été – An annual 10-day event each early July for 30 years.

This is the most beautiful city in North America, with all kinds of music in all kinds of venues. Some of the artists I’ve seen there include: Stochelo, Romane, Didier Lockwood, the Lincan Gypsy Ensemble, Taraf de Haidoks, Mariza (Fado, Portugal!!), Steve Hackett, and Pierre Bensusan. Europe comes to Québec each July!

Jim DeCava – Jim built my splendid 7-string guitar and is based in Stratford CT.

Café Musette colleague and fiddler Morwenna Lasko is now living and performing in Virginia.

» www.morwennalasko.com

Café Noir: The Waltz King 1994, & Window to the Sea 1995. Gypsy jazz inspired, unique, beautiful, and with vocals. Although Norbert Gerl is the representative European in the band, while it lasted, they hailed from Texas.

Note: as of 2002, almost the entire DJAZ catalogue from France is available here in the USA from » www.buffalobrosguitars.com at ridculously reasonable prices.

Lincan Gypsy Ensemble: Hôtel Clarendon, L’Empris Bar Québec City July 2001. Giani Lincan, large cymbalom, and Ionica Minune, accordion, have to be the greatest players of their respective instruments on the planet. And here they were together, with Costel Birlic on contrebasse and violin. I don’t think anyone has ever played music this fast before. Django, Paganini, Khatchaturian, Hora – gypsy swing the Romanian way. And we sat eight feet away from them. Read my review | Colleagues & Links

The urls www.cafe-musette.com and www.cafemusette.com also link to Cafe-Music.com’s home page.

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