The Django Reinhardt Festival Allstars of France featuring Dorado Schmitt In Concert

Oct. 15, 2012 - PRLog -- "The Best Jazz Show In Town," --Wall Street Journal

"The Django Reinhardt Festival at the Kennedy Center's KC Jazz Club on Friday night couldn't have made Franco-American relations seem more harmonious." - Mike Joyce, The Washington Post

The DJANGO REINHARDT FESTIVAL ALLSTARS, Featuring Dorado Schmitt, direct from the Django Festival at Birdland in New York City and The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. will perform in concert on Sunday, November 4 at 5:00 PM at the Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts, 2 Southbridge Street, Worcester, MA 01608.  Tickets at $27.00, $37.00 and $47.00 (Gold Circle) [including restoration fees] are on sale Friday, November 12 at http://www.thehanovertheatre.org or by calling 508-831-0800.  Also appearing on this program is Boston's own Grace Kelly, the young alto saxophonist who has taken the world by storm.  Grace will perform with her Quintet featuring Pete McCann, guitar, Evan Gregor, bass, Mark Walker, drums, Jason Palmer, trumpet, and Grace on saxophone and vocals.



Dorado Schmitt, the legendary Manouche gypsy guitarist from the Strasbourg region of France, recently returned to Birdland in New York to adoring fans.  Schmitt started coming to the United States in 2002 and has been a star attraction at major festivals and as well as at Birdland, home of the Django Reinhardt NY Festival where he has played alongside some of the U.S.'s most important jazz artists such as James Carter, Paquito D'Rivera, George Benson, Joe Lovano, Harry Allen and many others.   


Dorado Schmitt, a Django look-alike with his pencil thin mustache, and who is gifted on the guitar as well as the violin, suffered a terrible accident years ago as did Django Reinhardt in his life.  In 1988 Dorado was in a horrible car accident that put him in a coma for a long time and damaged his body with 35 fractures, but he miraculously recovered.  Django himself had lost two fingers in a fire in his caravan which led to the incredible style of music he created due to his special fingering on the guitar.  Dorado carries on the legacy of Django with the help of other gifted musicians and is a legend of "gypsy jazz."



Dorado was introduced to wide audiences thanks to the film Latcho Drom, which tells the real story of the Rom people moving from India to the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts.  Schmitt was born in St. Avold, Lorraine, France on May 29, 1957 and was surrounded by fine musicians throughout his youth, especially his father.  He picked up the guitar at age 7 and his father introduced him to the music of the great Django Reinhardt.  Then at around 15 or 16 years old, his preferences went towards the powerful pop and rock played by artists such as Santana and Jimmy Hendrix.  But in 1978 he turned back to gypsy jazz and formed the "Dorado Trio" with Dorado on violin, Gino Reinhardt on bass and Hono Winterstein on guitar.  He went on to play alongside excellent artists such as Bireli Lagrene, Sochelo Rosenberg and so many more greats.  Dorado stands as one of the most in demand gypsy jazz artists in the business, playing with musicians in this style all over the world.



". . .  the sound of the legendary gypsy jazz guitarist (Django) is irresistible, an earthy exuberance not to be missed. He influenced most of the great guitarists from Les Paul to Eric Clapton to Jimmy Hendrix, Black Sabbath and B.B King to name a few.  History tells that Django teamed with incredible jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli to form one of the greatest jazz partnerships in Europe, the Quintette du Hot Club de France in the pre-war 1930s.  This music has been heard in Woody Allen's film Sweet and Lowdown as well as in Chocolat and Stardust Memories . . . with its driving rhythms and intricate harmonies.  Reinhardt's manouche gypsy jazz possesses the musical elasticity to elicit international acclaim over a quarter of a century later . . . it makes you feel good."  - Elizabeth Ahlfors, CurtainUp.com

The Django Reinhardt Festival Allstars is a Stratta Philips Production.

About Grace Kelly:

When it comes to saxophonist /vocalist/composer/lyricist/arranger Grace Kelly, people seem to be divided into two groups: those who marvel at her proficiency, creativity and ever-accelerating growth, and those who have yet to encounter the 20-year-old wunderkind.  The ranks of the former category are growing by the day.  Trumpeter and Jazz at Lincoln Center Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis was so impressed with Kelly’s three-night stand as guest of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra that he invited her to join the ensemble at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater in Washington, D.C.  Harry Connick, Jr. heard Kelly in a master class on a December afternoon and brought her on stage to sit in with his band that night. Since then, she was named one of the "Top 10 College Women in 2011 by Glamour Magazine, Kelly has been voted “Best Jazz Act” in Boston four consecutive years in the FNX/Phoenix Best Music Poll, received the ASCAP Foundation’s Young Jazz Composers Award in 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011 and won “Jazz Artist of the Year” at the Boston Music Awards in both 2008 and 2010.  The 2009, 2010, and 2011 Downbeat Critics Poll added her to their list naming her one of the "Alto Saxophone Rising Stars," the youngest ever to be named so.  Kelly's music is varied and exciting. crossing genres and delighting audiences all over the world. 


Event website:  http://www.sueauclairpromotions.com/Sue_Auclair_Promotion...