Sunday, March 27, 2011

Open Studio - short film & jam session

We have met many people at Cite Des Arts from all over the world, but most people are only able to stay here for two months. Some of our friends are leaving at the end of March and we wanted to have some kind of party before their departure. Charlene's 40th birthday was on Friday, March 25, so we decided to have an Open Studio showing Charlene's short film 12 steps to success for Artists in Los Angeles as well as a jam session to "unofficially" celebrate Charlene's big 40.


The previous week I met Pasi Eerikäinen, an amazing violinist from Finland who is classically trained, but also plays in a Gypsy Jazz & Tango trio in Finland. Unfortunately Pasi was leaving at the end of March but we decided to try to pull off something for the Open Studio. It came down to learning two tango songs (by Astor Piazzolla) as well as four Gypsy Jazz songs (by Django Reinhardt) in a period of 5 days, with our first and only rehearsal 30 minutes before the Open Studio. Considering the circumstances, it seemed to go extremely well. All I can say is thank god for Pasi coming and playing so well, he made me sound 1000 times better with his brilliant playing.

Here are some videos from that night's "jam session":

Libertango - Astor Piazzolla


Oblivion - Astor Piazzolla


Nuages - Django Reinhardt


Minor Swing - Django Reinhardt


I think the Open Studio overall was a great success with the film screening, the jam session and just an overall great party (at least 15 bottles of wine, a case of beer, food, etc). Hopefully in the future Pasi and I can play again, because he's an incredible musician and a great inspiration.

2 comments:

  1. Beautiful! I really enjoyed it...but now are you gonna go back to Paul Beuscher and get a Gitane Django Acoustic? :)

    Seriously, that was awesome.

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  2. amazing stuff MAN!!!! love it! I just got introduced to Django myself just this year!

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