Learn or improve your Gypsy Jazz guitar skills with JONNY HEPBIR in 2025.
Covering all aspects of this amazing acoustic guitar genre made famous initially in the 30's, 40's and early 50's by Django Reinhardt and later by modern day exponents such as Bireli Lagrene, Dorado Schmitt, Stocholo Rosenberg and Angelo Debarre.
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GYPSY JAZZ STORIES no#1
Over the last few weeks I've been sifting through my archives and checking out videos and photos I haven't seen for years and in this case, never watched before.
From 2003, for about six years, if you were a regular at many of the Gypsy Jazz events in the U.K. and abroad, you probably would have come across Swedish monster musician Andreas Oberg.
I first met him at the legendary L'esprit Manouche Festival in Birmingham, England in July 2003 and subsequently at the same festival in 2004/5, The International Gypsy Guitar Festival in Gloucestershire 2003/4/5/6/7/8/9 and the Django Reinhardt Festival in Samois sur Seine, France for the same years.
He was one of those young prodigies that could play/absorb most guitar styles. I think he was a guitar rock god as a teenager and if I remember rightly, almost became a tennis pro instead of taking the musical path around this time before getting the Jazz bug. The period I mentioned above is when he was quite absorbed by the Gypsy Jazz style. He could totally do the George Benson, Joe Pass and Mike Stern things but I think the rawness and technical challenges of Django-style acoustic really hooked him. He went on to record albums with Jimmy Rosenberg and many top Jazz musicians.
He sort of went through his Gypsy Jazz period and then spent time conquering the American Jazz guitar scene before dipping his foot into songwriting after scoring a gig with Universal Music. Since then he's gone on to have Billboard chart success in the States and produced loads of hits for the K-Pop market. I never would've seen that coming when I met him in 2003! He still shreds regularly too.
I got to know Andreas a bit over this time and also jam with him loads. Apart from the Gypsies, he was one of the few non-Sinti guiarists at the time that had an instant 'on' button.
So here's the story about these two (edited together) video clips below.
SAMOIS FESTIVAL 2006.
Saturday afternoon on the original Island site of the festival at Luthier Leo Eimers tent. I can't recall who shot the videos but I remember the jam well. Leo was on a roll with his guitars around this time so a lot of the 'name' players were either jamming there or just hanging out.
Andreas was lugging around this ridiculously loud arch-top he'd recently acquired and I was playing this new oval-hole that Leo had made. The guitar was his first 'distressed' or 'antique' model. It looked like it had been both fire-damaged and in a knife fight at the same time. Sound and tone wise it was incredible! So popular that it saw more main-stage action that year than any other instrument. Everyone used it over the weekend, Stochelo, Bireli, Wawau Adler etc.
After hearing the arch-top, Leo said "use this one" and thrust it into my hands which was cool as I didn't have to work to get volume out of it. Also because I'd jammed with Andreas quite a lot, it was a nice relaxed session. I remember looking up and seeing Nomy Rosenberg (Jimmy's younger brother) and Wawau amongst others. Here's the last tune we played, 'Them There Eyes'.
Amusingly at around 1.03 mins 'someone' decides to engage Andreas in conversation about his guitar just when I'm getting into my stride. He deals with it like a pro and I was thinking "WHAAAT??". I'm relieved to see that I handled it too and kept powering on through. Hearing the voice properly on the video, I easily recognise it as an old friend of mine whose sense of 'timing' is legendary amongst those of us that know him.
I'd forgotten about this one! Again, don't know who filmed it, a short clip during a jam at Samoreau campsite. Between tunes, Andreas points at me and says "the best looking right-hand in England". Nearly 19 years later and that's still a hell of a nice compliment from him. Haha I can almost hear the knives historically sharpening.
Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoy the video.
Here's a couple of pics I found.
Onstage with Andreas, Angelo Debarre, Dave Kelbie and bassist Andy Maslen at L'esprit Manouche 2003.
IGGF 2007 jamming with Spanish ace Biel Ballester and Andreas.
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