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💫 This piece was originally titled Stéphane Stomp and was composed by Andre Dedjean in the 1960s. It later turned into a Gypsy Jazz classic known as Swing Gitan through the performances of Angelo Debarre. Did I ever mention that his stellar rendition of La Gitane was my first time hearing Gypsy Jazz? (It became my first piano Manouche arrangement back in 2015!) I’m really grateful for that magical moment of discovery, and I suppose this arrangement of Swing Gitan is my humble salute to him.
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📝A little about this arrangement:
Shortly after I arranged La Gitane in 2015, I came across Swing Gitan but I never got the chance to arrange it. Maybe it was because I was still new to the Gypsy Jazz party, I didn’t possess the adequate imagination or vocabulary to transform it into a piano piece, especially since most of the piece is founded in improvisation/licks. I think that it’s thanks to my work on my recent Manouche arrangements that I felt ready to endeavor on Swing Gitan, and I decided to make it glamorously acrobatic haha! If you can’t tell, I adore octaves!
📫Email: music.pzakarian@yahoo.com
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NB: The piano I’m playing has extremely heavy keys as it lacks the regular maintenance, it’s not the best for heavy duty pieces like Swing Gitan, but we did our best!
🌸After publishing my last videos, I received wonderful emails of support from so many of you. I will turn the next part into a little “blog entry” and perhaps I may receive some echo again!
I’ll call it -
💭A penny for my thoughts:
Where I live, there are never any Jazz jams, Gypsy jazz sessions, or anything close to improvisation with other musicians. I learnt to improvise entirely on my own (because I started as a classical pianist). Even though I start the work on my Gypsy jazz piano arrangements with improvisation, I end up finalizing all the notes since my targets are to produce videos for KZfaq, and to transcribe all the notes. Knowing my notes would really help the process. (Or do Classical habits die hard…?)
Do Gypsy Jazz musicians do the same when they will record/perform? Do they have most of their licks planned out? I catch myself being increasingly curious about such things. I also feel compelled to start playing live with other musicians, because I want to get used to taking the back seat and doing more accompaniment. Plus, I’m sure the exchange of energies in the same space is something wonderful. I’m positive that one day the time for that will come. Anyway, thanks for reading this far. I hope you’ve enjoyed this video!
Cheers
Pat🍀