Remove ImagesPicks of the Week 4
Gypsy Jazz with the John Jorgenson Quintet and Tom Conway
Sunday (June 5), 6pm, McCoy Studio Theater, MACC, Kahului; $25/$30
June 02, 2011
Sunday (June 5), 6pm, McCoy Studio Theater, MACC, Kahului; $25/$30
It was six-string samurai Tom Conway who first introduced me to gypsy jazz, when I was a teen under his tutelage. The music mesmerized me—a melodious waterfall of meticulous notes that are at once smooth and scintillating. Later, I discovered Woody Allen's Sweet and Low Down, and earned an even greater love of the story behind this string styling. Allen's bittersweet flick follows Sean Penn as Emmet Ray—a prodigious picker who's always a step-behind his elusive idol, the much-mythologized gypsy jazz guitar god, Django Reinhardt. (If you've seen the movie, I'll ask you this, "Want to go to the dump and shoot some rats?") Celebrating gypsy jazz—in honor of Reinhardt's 100th birthday—The Arts Education for Children Group (AECG) presents a special show, "Django Would Go!" this Sunday. Headlined by the John Jorgenson Quintet, whose namesake is heralded as "the U.S. ambassador of gypsy jazz," the concert will also feature Conway, plus The Hot Club of Hulaville. 242-SHOW (7469); mauiarts.org