Boulou FerréMany people do concider the heritage and history of JazzManouche only to Django Reinhardt, his most prominent representative. But the heritage is living on thru players like Boulou Ferré as well.
Born 1951 in Paris, only two years before Django´s death, Boulou has a close relation to this heritage: of course by his famous father Pierre "Matelot" Ferré (1918-1989), as well as by his uncle Baro Ferré (1908-1976). Both of them played alongside with Django Reinhardt in the Quintette du Hot Club de France.
"The link between Django and my family is an artistic one," says Boulou. "Django, with my father and my uncles, was a bit like the Pope and his bishops. Something like a trinity, religious and ritualistic." Also Boulou Ferre's brother, Elios Ferre (born in 1956), becomes a known guitarrist of that heritage.
Boulou Ferre started to play as a chid, and only 7 years old staring to copy the licks of Charlie Parker, writing it down in staffnotatioon for guitar. He plays his first offical concert at the age of 8, with 12 recording his first album as a Bandleader. Alike later on with Bireli Lagrene he was honoured for his work very early, bacause of the closeness of his playing to Django.
In 1963 he sined in for the "Conservatoire National de Paris" where he studied classical music form some years. At the age of 13 he played a concert with John Coltrane in Antibes on the "Juan Les Pins Jazz Festival". After the concert they both met again and Coltrane, the vetran of Saxophone showed him a couple of licks.
In 1978 he founded a Duo with his brother Elios and both of them played together for about 30 years, recording many records as well.
Even if both of them alsways favorized acoustic Selmer-Guitars (as their father was using playing twith the Quintette du Hot Club de France), both of them were experimenting with electrical guitars as well. "You must learn to play acoustic guitar first," says Ferre. "But electric guitar is also great because it allows you more coloring to your music."
Boulou Ferre recorded many different albums also with other artists, amongst them "Three of a Kind" together with Babik Reinhardt (Django Reinhardt's 2nd son) and Christian Escoude.
Nevertheless even if his playing always has strong relation to Django Reinhardt, his method and way of playing has grown way beyond the original Hot Club-style. Very rarely Ferré uses the typical "La Pompe"-Rythm and never playing any "hectical" solos.
Still Django Reinhardt always stays his musical redline.
"Django was a guru for all of us," sagte er mal. "A master...we listened to him all the time -- it's part of our history, our world, our culture, our lifestyle." and: "If I was stuck on a desert island with my heroes, there would be four: Mozart, Handel, Shakespeare, and Django."
(Quelle: marodrom.com / Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr., All Music Guide)
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