Django l'Impressionniste

Perhaps best known for his Grammy-winning soundtrack to Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, this French-born guitarist and composer has virtually consecrated his career to Django Reinhardt since switching in his teens from classical piano. Now based in New Jersey, Wrembel has for many years curated an annual week-long Django a Gogo festival to celebrate the legendary guitarist. With five discs on his own label already dedicated to Django, this virtuoso disciple has now collected and perfected 17 little-known solo pieces that Django recorded between 1937 and 1950 – all played here on a 1943 Busato guitar that previously belonged to Joseph Reinhardt, Django's brother.

With titles like ‘Solo Improvisé No 1’ and ‘Improvisation 2’, these three-minute-or-so meditative miniatures bear little resemblance to the swinging Gypsy jazz of the Quintette du Hot Club de France. Only briefly, on the penultimate and protracted ‘Belleville’, do we hear those familiar choppy, rhythmic chords. For the rest, what we hear instead brings to mind the kind of introspective music of acoustic guitarists as diverse as Ralph Towner, Baden Powell, even Leo Kottke and Ry Cooder. A lengthy and barely recognisable ‘Nuages’ concludes the set and encapsulates this beautifully conceived and performed music.