The gipsy swing, also called jazz manouche or hot jazz, is still a family affair to a certain extent – which is also indicated by another commonly used term: Sinti Swing. As a mobile ethnic group, the Sinti have always cultivated their own culture. Django Reinhardt became her musical progenitor, who created the only original European style of early jazz with the guitar swing of his “Hot Club de France”. Many Sinti emulate and follow his example; The gipsy swing has been handed down from generation to generation in the families without any notes – most Sinti Swingers are self-taught and intuitive musicians. One of the largest and most productive families is the Weiss family. Numerous outstanding hot jazz musicians are descended from them, perhaps the most famous being guitarist Traubeli Weiss, who died in 2012. David and his cousin Danino Weiss also learned from him, their uncle, and yet, like many Sinti musicians of their generation, i.e. the now 20 to 30-year-olds, they broke new ground. If only because they did not choose guitar or violin, the classical lead instruments of Gipsy Swing, but David chose the accordion and Danino the piano. On these instruments they grew up with a wider range of jazz right from the start. So, it is no coincidence that their new, second album is called “The New Gipsy Sound”. Also, because the instrumentation of their quartet is untypical. Their companions are no Sinti, but Peter Cudek, one of the most versed and variable bassists of the Southern German scene, and Guido May, an internationally renowned drummer, who is particularly at home in the heavy groove and who has been involved in the legacy of James Brown as drummer of Pee Wee Ellis for many years. On their debut album “Violets For Your Furs”, released two years ago, David and Danino Weiss turned their attention mainly to classical American jazz, as the title song popularized by Frank Sinatra already indicated. The album featured pieces by the Count Basie saxophonist Frank Foster, John Green and Erroll Garner, with Austrian jazz drummer Bernd Reiter, percussionist Biboul Darouiche – known for the Afro-Jazz of his band Bantu Soleil – and distant Hamburg relative Giovanni Jeffrey Weiss, who with his extremely successful band Django Deluxe, twice decorated with the Echo Jazz award, are themselves breaking new ground in hot jazz.
