In the final months of his life, the transcendent Romani guitarist Django Reinhardt despaired that he’d been forgotten, and that his singular contributions to jazz would go unrecognized.
Only 43 when he died of a heart attack in the spring of 1953, Reinhardt had created the Gypsy jazz sound some two decades earlier with his virtuosic partner, French violinist Stéphane Grappelli, in the Quintette du Hot Club de France. Translating Louis Armstrong’s swing into a string band format, the Hot Club was the first European innovation to influence jazz. Rather than being overlooked, Reinhardt’s legacy is more expansive than ever.
The Django Festival Allstars, one of the primary vehicles connecting the French Romani (or Manouche) community to North America, returns to California for a series of performances, including a Nov. 22 Healdsburg Jazz concert at Raven Performing Arts Theater, and a sold-out Nov. 23 date at Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society (the show is availabe for streaming). The group also performs Nov. 30 at the SFJAZZ Center, and has two shows Dec. 1 at Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz.
The tour marks the 25th edition of the Allstars, a combo launched in 2002 at Birdland Jazz Club, one of New York City’s flagship venues. The personnel has evolved over the years, but the ensemble is still inextricably connected to France’s Manouche community, including lead guitarist Samson Schmitt, son of the Allstars’ late founding guitarist and violinist Dorado Schmitt, and Francko “Locomotive” Mehrstein, who supplies the essential Hot Club pulse as the rhythm guitarist.
“The rhythm guitar is doing everything with the bass player, and it’s very important for them to play together at the same tempo,” Schmitt explained on a recent video call from his house in Forbach, a city that’s home to a large Gypsy community where Reinhardt is revered. Passed down within families and clans, Gypsy jazz is a source of tremendous pride. In fact, Schmitt and Mehrstein are cousins.
“Our grandfathers were brothers,” he said. “Growing up we played at some junior concerts. Now we have the Django Allstars.”
The band also features the brilliant accordionist Ludovic Beier, violin maestro Pierre Blanchard, who was a Grappelli protégé, and bassist Antonio Licusati. They’re joined by special guest vocalist Veronica Swift, whose journey from child prodigy to genre-stretching star has been one of jazz’s most compelling plotlines over the past 15 years.
The daughter of the late, highly regarded bebop pianist Hod O’Brien and jazz vocalist Stephanie Nakasian, “she was a teenager when she first played with us at Birdland, and now she’s a famous singer, one of the best,” Schmitt said.
Now living in Los Angeles, Swift, 31, is no stranger to the Bay Area. She’s performed at just about every major venue and festival, including dates with pianist Benny Green, trumpet star Chris Botti, and more recently her own rock ‘n’ roll project.
“What I love about the Django Allstars is that they have that heavy swing with all four beats represented,” Swift said. “It feels so good to do that with people who know what they’re doing. It’s really passed down through families, generation to generation. Samson played with Dorado, carrying it from Grappelli, that direct lineage.”
After her first guest appearance at Birdland, Swift became part of the extended Django Allstars family. She performed with them at Carnegie Hall in 2017 and the Allstars accompanied Swift on a track from her eponymous 2023 album, “Je Veux Vivre,” her arrangement of an aria from the 19th century French opera “Roméo et Juliette.”
“I’ve never been a singer who just wants to sing standards,” Swift said. “I’m definitely going to do that aria I arranged. Maybe an Edith Piaf song because I love her. I sing some stuff in the Django and French repertoire, and they play bebop. It’s a nice understanding.”
Inviting Swift into the fold was one of many savvy moves by Django Festival Allstars producer Pat Philips and her late husband Ettore Stratta, the prolific pops conductor who worked extensively with Grappelli from the mid-1970s almost until the violinist’s death in 1997 at the age of 89.
A Carnegie Hall memorial concert they presented honoring Grappelli feaured a bevy of violin masters, including Jean-Luc Ponty, “but somehow the music of Django was what people went crazy over, and that was the seed of the Birdland concerts,” said Phillips, who shared the video call with Schmitt.
Keeping the repertoire fresh, the Allstars focus more on their original tunes than the traditional Hot Club repertoire, “but we never forget our master, Django,” Schmitt said. “We play our music, but it’s all in the style he created.”
Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.
DJANGO FESTIVAL ALLSTARS
When & where: 7 p.m. Nov. 22 at the Raven Performing Arts Theater, Healdsburg, $54-$104, healdsburgjazz.org; 4:30 p.m. Nov. 23 at Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, Half Moon Bay, $50-$60 (livestream $12), bachddsoc.org; 7 p.m. Nov. 30 at SFJAZZ Center, San Francisco, $45.50-$104.50, www.sfjazz.org; and Dec. 1 at Kuumbwa Jazz Center, Santa Cruz, $46.62-$64.10, www.kuumbwajazz.org.