Last week I didn't participate to my beloved Open Mic contest because I was basically re-learning a tune I studied some years ago, when I had a crush on gipsy jazz (manouche) music. That's the kind of music Django Reinhardt invented back in the Thirthies, mixing French popular melodies, traditional gipsy armonies and much much more of his own incredible genius. Did you know that Django, renowned for his virtuosity, played guitar only with two fingers in his left hand? He lost the others at young age when a blaze tore through his caravan.
This tune, I was saying, is known as "Costa Lukacs tune" and I discovered it thanks to a great and young manouche player, Adrian Holovaty, who posted his version on Youtube in 2012. Via Youtube I also discovered another version of this tune played by Tim Robinson that I personally like even more. Tim describes Costa Lukacs as the "great Hungarian Gypsy guitarist" and "the missing link between Django Reinhardt and Bireli Lagrene".
Costa Lukacs never recorded any album. All that I think he left us is a videotape with 26 songs that someone posted on Youtube...I find these songs una più bella dell'altra - one more beautiful than the other. And...there's his own version of (t)his tune too.
Please listen to my performance that is inspired mostly by Tim Robinson's version. I have to say: I probably play 50% notes less - my fingers cannot currently play any faster. But this made me think of that dialogue between Mozart and Emperor Joseph II "Too many notes" and it made me smile.
Emperor Joseph II: My dear young man, don't take it too hard. Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.
Mozart: Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?
(Amadeus by Milos Forman, Screenplay by Peter Shaffer)
Don't forget to support my entry in the contest (if you like it!!) and to vote the contest post too - it will make the contest self-sustainable.