Romane

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Patrick Leguidecoq, known professionally as Romane, is a guitarist born in Paris, France in 1959 who specializes in gypsy jazz. [1]

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France, officially the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered by Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany to the northeast, Switzerland and Italy to the east, and Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. The country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres (248,573 sq mi) and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice.

Gypsy jazz is a style of jazz generally accepted to have been started by the Romani guitarist Jean "Django" Reinhardt in Paris during the 1930s. Because its origins are in France, and Reinhardt was from the Manouche Sinti clan, gypsy jazz is often called by the French name "jazz manouche", or alternatively, "manouche jazz" in English language sources.

Contents

Life and work

Although not a gypsy by birth, Romane benefited from interactions with gypsy guitar players from an early age and especially learned from the recordings of Django Reinhardt, to whom he has remained a faithful heir through the course of his career. However, this respect does not hinder him in any way and does not prevent him from composing original pieces in the gypsy jazz genre.

Django Reinhardt Belgian-born Romani French jazz guitarist and composer

Jean Reinhardt stage name Django Reinhardt, was a Belgian-born Romani-French jazz guitarist and composer, regarded as one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century. He was the first jazz talent to emerge from Europe and remains the most significant.

His discography shows a desire not to remain rigidly fixed in the style but also to move forward, whether by the choice of musicians, accompanying instruments or the choice of whether or not to amplify his guitar. He has performed in a range of settings, from duo to sextet: for example, the group Django Vision or the Romane Acoustic Quartet. His partners on recordings range from Florin Niculescu to Didier Lockwood, Tchavolo Schmitt, Angelo Debarre and Stochelo Rosenberg.

Florin Niculescu Romanian musician

Florin Niculescu is a Romanian violinist of Romani (Gypsy) ethnicity.

Didier Lockwood French jazz violonist and composer

Didier Lockwood was a French jazz violinist. He played in the progressive rock/jazz fusion band Magma in the 1970s and was known for his use of electric amplification and experimentation on different sounds on the electric violin.

Tchavolo Schmitt Romani guitarist

Tchavolo Schmitt is a gypsy jazz guitarist. Schmitt performed as a member of various ensembles in the 1970s. Then he settled in Strasbourg and left the professional circuit for a time, releasing solo albums in 2000. He played Miraldo in the Tony Gatlif film Swing.

Romane also works in the educational field, having published several methods of guitar, opened a school of gypsy swing music (the Swing Romane Academy [2] ), launched a magazine (French Guitare) and was the first director of the Village Musiques Actuelles ATLA [3] founded by Noëlle Tatich in 1994.

His son, Richard Manetti, also pursues a career as a jazz guitarist and gypsy swing performer. They regularly perform together on national and international stages. His younger son, Pierre, is also a talented guitarist.

Publications

Discography

Prizes

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References

  1. Note, where not otherwise attributed, information on this page originates as a translation of the page for Romane on French Wikipedia, available at https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romane_(jazz), as at September 2017.
  2. Swing Romane Académie, official site
  3. ATLA, official site
  4. Grand Prix du Jazz 2013

See also