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DUANE
ANDREWS |
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I started
playing on my mother’s guitar when I was around 10 years old
and pretty much kept going ever since. I really started getting into
jazz when I was around 16 and after high school decided to pursue
music more intensely and enrolled in the Jazz Studies program at ST.
FX University. After finishing that I became profoundly interested
in classical music specifically contemporary classical composition
and that led to several years studying in France first at the Conservatoire
International de Paris and later at the CNR in Marseilles where I
had the wonderful fortune of being able to study in the composition
classes of Georges Boeuf and Regis Campo. It was during my last trip
to France back in 2001 that I heard a modern Manouche guitarist named
Moreno which sparked my love for the Gypsy Jazz of the legendary Django
Reinhardt.
I have
three distinct influences on my sound, Django’s Gypsy Jazz, contemporary
classical music and traditional music from my home in Newfoundland
which has a lot of Celtic flavour. On my first two albums, Duane
Andrews (2004) and Crocus (2006), I was developing a sound
that brought together Django’s music and the traditional music
from Newfoundland but on the latest album Raindrops (2008)
I wanted to bring in some of the contemporary classical sounds to
the mix. I also wanted to develop a more elaborate arranging style
as the first couple of albums were more bare boned in terms of arrangement
so I decided to augment the core of my ensemble which consisted of
two guitars, acoustic bass and trumpet and brought in vibraphone and
string quartet to enrich the textural palette. We recorded the album
over a couple of days in a lovely little studio in a small town out
on the coast of Newfoundland overlooking the water. I like an off
the floor approach to recording and we tracked the album together
with everything close mic-ed though we managed to get setup so we
didn’t need to use headphones. I really am thrilled with how
the album came together and feel it perfectly expresses what I’ve
been trying to do over the last few of years. “Blue Drag”
which was one of the gems from Django’s repertoire took on a
new dimension by adding the strings while a track like “Bees
And Flower”’ brings out an interpretation of a set of traditional
Newfoundland reels in more of a flat picking kind of style but with
a gypsy jazz kind of groove. Though the sources of the music are pretty
diverse I think there’s still a cool coherence throughout the
album.
I’ve
been playing a 1980’s model Dell Arte grande bouche Selmer style
acoustic guitar for the last 4 or 5 years. It’s been around the
world with me and has been ‘modified’ by a few of the airlines
but it’s still holding together. I just love the feel and sound
of it and those Selmer style guitars have such a unique sound that’s
kind of a cross between a standard steel string and nylon string guitar.
After years of searching I’ve settled on a couple of D-TAR boxes
and a mic/pickup combination for amplification. I have an under the
saddle pickup which I blend with an AKG atm-30 mic that clips onto
the sound hole and extends with a goose neck to get inside the sound
hole. I place it on the bass side of the sound hole but still use
the mic mainly for the high end and the pickup for the low. I blend
the both of them through the D-TAR Solstice and also insert the D-Tar
Equinox into the line for extra eq options then send it all to the
front house as a blended signal through one xlr out. The Solstice
is nice too as it has a separate out for monitors but I usually can
get away with not having to use monitors live.
By far
my favorite guitarist is Django and really everything he has recorded
is brilliant guitar work. But there are a few tracks that stand out
like the original version of “Tiger Rag,” “Limehouse
Blues” (the uptempo version with the Hot Club of France from
the 1930’s), “I’ll See You In My Dreams”. One
track that really stands out to me is “Rhythm Futur” which
is a compositional masterpiece as well as an exceptional guitar recording.
There is also an amazing video clip which you should be able to find
if you google “J’Attendrai”. It’s a promo video
that was shot for a tour that the Hot Club were doing in England and
I think it’s the only existing footage where you can see and
hear Django performing. He does this one massive chromatic run spanning
like 3 octaves which always blows my mind. Another album I listen
to a lot is Andy Irvine and Paul Brady by Andy Irvine and Paul
Brady. It’s one of the peaks of the traditional music revival
that was happening in Ireland during the 1970’s and has an amazing
array of stringed instruments arranged with an intricacy but also
a simplicity. Paul Brady is the guitarist on that album and I’m
thinking he probably keeps to the DADGAD tuning.
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There’s
a good reason why the fantastic guitar music that Django Reinhardt
made back in postwar Europe back in the ‘40s and ‘50s lives
on today. It’s the same reason is why modern rock guitarists
like Shadows great Hank Marvin and top electric players like John
Jorgenson have, in recent years, turned to Django’s Gypsy Jazz
style of acoustic guitar playing. The reason is that Django’s
lightening quick style approach to acoustic finger style guitar makes
people feel good. Canadian guitarist Duane Andrews spent time in France
and upon his return he took up the Gypsy Jazz torch and the results
sound great on his 2008 CD, Raindrops. A popular guitarist
up in his native Canada, Andrews digs deep and delivers the goods
with Raindrops. A stellar mix of Andrews originals, traditional
arrangements and a Django cover fill up the sound stage on Raindrops.
Backed up several key players, including rhythm guitarist Steve
Hussey, and accompanied by The Atlantic String Quartet,
Andrews displays a wide range of chops and impeccable taste on an
all instrumental CD that not only sounds good but feels good as well.
Track by track notes by Andrews within the well packaged digi-pak
CD design fills in the missing pieces behind Andrews’ musette
of choice. 