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I'm trying to bring some of the more overlooked stuff from the local music scene. I have to balance it against a full-time real job, so I can't be as thorough as I'd like, but hopefully you'll find some of the stuff that Mark Brown and Ricardo Baca don't cover. If you've got a tip on a great venue for live music or great musicians to check out, e-mail me here. To bookmark this blog, click here.

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Django's spirit lives on in Gypsy Swing Revue

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Contributed by: John Zwick, YourHub.com on 2/24/2008

When pressed to come up with uniquely American art forms, jazz is one of the first and most frequent ones one can expect - not only because it's representative of the America-as-melting-pot narrative, but it's a field where we can reliably kick the snot out of pretenders. Jazz is America's baby and among its most revered names, you're going to find very little representation of the Old World.

The big exception is Django Reinhardt, the late pioneer of "jazz manouche," or gypsy jazz. While other Europeans were aping the sounds of whatever jazz had made it overseas, Reinhardt and his band the Hot Club of France were pioneering a new sound built on Django's dextrous guitar work and the melodies of violinist Stéphane Grappelli.

Fast-forward to today and jazz music isn't so uniquely American, but it's learned to adapt and grow and even take a few pointers from some of its foreign upstarts. Denver quartet Gypsy Swing Revue carries on the tradition of Django and modern manouche players like Tchavolo Schmitt.

Their repertoire tackles some of Django Reinhardt's classic tracks and adds manouche covers of jazz standards and plenty of originals - all of which get a fair shake on the group's latest album Puttin' on the Ritz.

Ersatz Django Elliot Reed is aces as a band leader and guitarist and violinist Dmitriy Fisch is captivating.

If you haven't caught them in the mornings on KUVO, who've been showing more local love than usual lately, Gypsy Swing Revue puts in three sets every Wednesday at Denver's Irish Snug, 1201 E. Colfax Ave. A bit ignominious for a band that, by all right, should be getting swank engagements, but that's no slight against the Snug. It's a nice bar with friendly staff and a respectable wall of whiskey - and apparently the business savvy to book a a group that ought to be playing a jazz club. You can give them a listen at http://gypsyswingrevue.com.

While we're on the subject of bands who've got a good bit of radio love lately, Denver hip-hop band Flobots just came off a sold-out show at the Gothic Theater on Feb. 16, fueled, no doubt, by the radio play "Handlebars", a single off last year's Fight With Tools, has been getting. Of course, the recent gushing from local press over openers, up-and-comers and possible next-big-thing Paper Bird couldn't have hurt.

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