Moreno Winterstein was born in 1963 in Alsace/France, the region at the german/french border where over the last 100 years many Sintis have settled. A melting pot for Jazzmanouche although, and the home for musicians like Bireli Lagrene, Mandino Reinhardt, Titi Winterstein and Lulu Reinhardt.Moreno was raised in the tongue of his anchestors, Romanes, always traveling thru Europe and France. He learned to play the guitar tought by his father.
On the booklet of his second CD he describes it as follows: "My father died when I was very young, but as far as I can remember he always had a guitar with him. My older brothers taught me all they knew.
All I had to do was open my ears, watch and try to copy the finger positions. Sometimes they were hard with me and they would slap my hands when I made a mistake, but they quickly saw that I was talented.
"I must say that all I thought about was playing the guitar. At night, when there would be guitar parties, I would pretend to be asleep in the camper and would watch carefully from behind the window. When I saw a chord I didn’t know I would quickly reproduce the finger positions on my left forearm. Then I would take my guitar that I always hid next to my bed and silently press the chords while lying in my bed. Nobody knew."
Moreno studied all records of Djagno Reinhardt that he could get a hold on, but he was all the same inspired by the music of his anchestors the traditional Gypsymusic and thus tought by his brothers, uncles and friends. This was one of the influences that stampe the sound of the alsacian Sintis much stronger as the Jazz-orientiented Sound of the Parisian Sintimusicians. Besides Django surely his frined and mentor Paul "Tchan Tchou" Vidal became the biggest influence for Moreno.
Moreno writes on: "I busked in the cafés around Toulon [a city in southern France]. One day I was playing at a terrace café when a short, well-dressed man, wearing a hat and a moustache, came up to me. He said, ‘You’re from Alsace. I can tell by the way you play.’
It was Tchan Tchou Vidal, a gypsy guitarist who got his nickname because of his slanted eyes.
"I had heared a lot about Tchan Tchou and had listened to his records. And I had often dreamed of meeting him. I could talk for hours about him.
The same night we met, we played together and immediately hit it off. I was nervous and very impressed by him. He played two notes for ten of my own. I quickly understood that I was nothing next to him. I was like a young puppy jumping around like crazy while he took his time to carefully place his phrases." und weiter:
"So decided to stay in Toulon. I found myself a camper and accompanied him for four years. He taught me the basics, in particular the art of waltzes, the notion of measure and the musicality of a phrase.
It is when you are separated from someone like that you realise how much you learned from them. Today I still think of how he played and he remains a reference. I was extremely lucky to have met with someone like Tchan Tchou."
Morenos playing is full of power, energiy and strength, sometimes vastly fast and impetuos, after again very melodic, silent and peotic.
He has been recording numerous records within the last years, upon them "Django Club" an Album with different original compositions, as well as the CDs "Jazz Tzigane" and "Le fils du vent" where he and his wife Marina sing wonderfully on Romanes.
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