Gypsy Project
Gypsy guitarists like Biréli Lagrène grow up learningDjango Reinhardt's solos the way Americans cut their teeth on "Louie, Louie" or "Stairway to Heaven." Perhaps that's whyGypsy Project, Lagrène's first recording of acoustic, Hot Club-style jazz since his debut as a teenage guitar prodigy in the early 1980s, feels like a homecoming. Lagrène's band may replicate the three guitars, bass, and violin lineup of the original Hot Club quintet, but this is no mere exercise in nostalgia. Lagrène and violinist Florin Niculescu imbue standards like "Embraceable You" and "Lime House Blues" with a blend of jazzy sophistication and bittersweet romanticism that is undeniably Gypsy in character. It's as if they are wrapping the hard lessons learned in centuries of difficult wandering within bonbons likeCharles Trenet's "La Mer." The music onGypsy Projecthas a certain charm, but when Lagrène accents the melody with an unexpected string bend or rhythmic flourish, he reveals surprisingly complex emotions lying just beneath the surface.--Michael Simmons