Wawau Adler - Happy Birthday Django 110 (2020)

Up until the 1970s, every major new jazz style came from its mother country, the United States - except for one that was invented by European musicians as the European variety of jazz: Manouche Jazz, also known as Gypsy Swing or Sinti Swing, as Django Reinhardt called it, invented and cultivated with his Hot Club de France in the 1930s. The guitar, which has long played no role in American jazz, was and is the focus here. And as the genre name suggests, it was and still is musicians from the Sinti and Roma ethnic groups who maintained and continued Reinhardt's virtuoso, rousing and timeless style. One of Reinhardt's outstanding descendants has long been Josef Wawau Adler, born in Karlsruhe in 1967. Today, now that Django Reinhardt would have celebrated his 110th birthday on January 23, 2020, Adler is putting a musical monument to him on this ideal occasion, which is also called Happy Birthday Django 110. Since Django Reinhardt's 'Quintette du Hot Club de France' has shaped me and countless other musicians all over the world, it was only natural to make the album sound exactly like this, says Wawau Adler. For this reason, the original sound of the old recordings was adhered to during production: Adler plays an original Selmer guitar No. 828, which, like Django's guitar No. 503, dates from the 1940s. And it was recorded with only two globally unique and very valuable microphones, which are modeled on the originals used at that time. As back in the days, no other recording technology was used. On the other hand, respect for the great role model also means taking his idea of jazz as an individual expression seriously. A challenge, because this happens exactly at the time of its creation in improvised music.