Track Listing

1. Seaside Adventure
2. Limehouse Blues
3. Under Paris Skies
4. I've Found a New Baby
5. Laura
6. Radio City Rhythm
7. Plum Crumble
8. Cherokee
9. Nuages
10. Zingarelli
11. My Blue Heaven
12. Swing 39
13. Blues for Venetia
14. I'll See You in My Dreams
15. La rive gauche
16. New Metropolitan Swing

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19360 in Music
• Released on: 2002-05-28
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com
In the 1930s Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli and the Quintet of the Hot Club of France took American jazz, Manouche melodies, and Parisian café music and blended them into an intoxicating style now known as Gypsy jazz. Pearl Django, a band from the Pacific Northwest, play music that's inspired by Reinhardt and Grappelli, but as their delightful versions of swing standards on Under Paris Skies show, they are more than mere copyists. When Pearl Django plays Hot Club standards like "Nuages" or "Swing 39," the guitar and fiddle solos retain the effortless bounce of the original versions, but the propulsive rhythms are pure American swing. In a nice change from the standard Hot Club stringed-instrument lineup of three guitars, violin, and bass, Pearl Django includes an accordion on four numbers, a deft touch that recalls the music's birth in the cafés and bistros of France. Under Paris Skies is a charming homage to the music of Reinhardt and Grappelli from a band that knows how to add their own personal twist to a classic style. --Michael Simmons

Customer Reviews

Welcome to Gypsy Jazz
Pearl Django provide the ideal entry to the world of gypsy jazz. "Under Paris Skies" takes the listener on a jaunty walk through the streets of Paris. It is full of joy and expert playing. Hard to imagine who wouldn't like this one. Highly recommended.

They're Back!
I've heard Stephane Grappelli live in concert three times in my life, the last time just a year before he died. I began collecting Django Reinhardt and Grappelli albums in the 70's, and then CD's in the 80's and 90's. After Grappelli's death, I thought I'd never hear this sound live again. I heard Pearl Django live at a jazz festival yesterday, and this group is the real thing. And what's wonderful about their albums is that the sound is crisp and clear, unlike those re-releases of old Hot Club albums from the 30's. It gives a taste of what it must have been like to actually hear Django and Grappelli first hand.

Even better in Concert
I'm now a Pearl Django raving fan!! I saw them a couple months ago here in Anacortes, WA and ever since then I can't get enough of them. I just turn this cd on continuous play and listen to it all day!!!