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09/14/2023 09:13 AMBefore speaking with guitarist Stephane Wrembel, I had not heard much of the music made by gypsy jazz artist Django Reinhardt. I was familiar with his name as the two-fingered motivation that inspired Black Sabbath riffmeister Tony Iommi to continue with a career in music after suffering his own digital injury. I also heard of his tremendous skill and innovation in the world of jazz, the kind that has influenced legions of guitarists around the world, not the least of which is Wrembel himself. Catching a glimpse of his acrobatic guitar work at his performance at the Side Door Jazz Club in Old Lyme on Sept. 2, one can tell he, too, was cast under Django’s magical spell.
“To me, as a guitarist, Django is to the guitar what Bach is to the keyboard. So you study Django, the more you play, the better guitarist you will be,” Wrembel told me. “That’s why when I play, one can hear that I studied Django very hard.”
Beneath a few lights on a small stage, the torrential talent of Wrembel and his band was on full display for a noticeably captivated audience. There was certainly an established connection between the musicians and the audience that flourished during the evening. What that connection really is, I’m not so sure. Wrembel wouldn’t exactly like to describe it as “spiritual” or anything else new age, but he knows something is in the air when “we try to use all our craftsmanship at the highest level possible.” That’s simply the ineffable power of music.
“I believe there is a connection we cannot really understand or talk about, but it’s there,” said Wrembel.
Wrembel began the show with two “improvisation” pieces composed by Reinhardt, sitting center stage as the sole performer. In a room so quiet you could hear a pin drop, the audience was immediately struck by his dexterous movements across the fretboard, strings producing the kind of ethereal and crystalline melodies and chord structures I love to hear in music like that of Jimi Hendrix and even math rock.
His band then joined to run through the rest of their repertoire, which included an original by Wrembel called “Bistro Fada,” featured in the Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris. It is one of two songs he has composed for an Allen film, the other being Vicki Cristina Barcelona.
Every song that was performed was executed beautifully. I was very excited by the jaunty arrangement of “Tiger Rag,” perhaps the very first popular jazz standard ever recorded by the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1917. It was also a song that my high school symphonic band played my senior year, but this version was more exciting, with a faster tempo and superior musicianship.
My personal favorite song from the setlist was Wrembel’s original called “Voyager,” which he told the audience was inspired by the space probe of the same and its interplanetary journey across the Solar System. Wrembel briefly mentioned at one point in the show how jazz was a part of the evolution of rock and roll, eventually leading to a band like Pink Floyd. The influence of that band’s music, especially its emotional intensity and drama, was evident in “Voyager,” taking the audience on a powerful, crescendo-ing sonic portrait of venturing into the great unknown.
Upcoming shows at the Side Door to look out for are pianist Zaccai Curtis on Friday, Sept. 15, The Steve Slagel Quintet on Saturday, Sept. 16, and the Noah Preminger Quartet on Saturday, Sept. 23.