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Biréli Lagrène & Sylvain Luc
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Biréli Lagrène & Sylvain Luc · Biréli Lagrène and Sylvain Luc are two French jazz guitarists who also play together. Lagrène was born in 1966 in Soufflenheim, in Alsace, into a Romani family. His father and grandfather were guitarists, and he grew up in the Gypsy guitar tradition. He began playing at four or five and at seven was already improvising jazz in the style of Django Reinhardt, whom his father admired. In 1980, still in his early teens, he recorded his first album, Routes to Django: Live at the Krokodil.
Music and breakthrough
In the years that followed he toured with guitarists such as Al Di Meola, Paco de Lucía and John McLaughlin and played with Benny Carter, Benny Goodman and Stéphane Grappelli. He performed with Jaco Pastorius, Stanley Clarke and the Gil Evans Orchestra. His style stretches across swing, jazz fusion and post-bop. He won several Django d'Or awards and, in 2001, a Victoire de la Musique for the album Front Page.
Influence
Two guitars in a duo show how much a stringed instrument can say without a band around it: one plays melody, the other chords and rhythm, and they take turns. Lagrène brings the Reinhardt tradition of the French Romani guitarists into a modern jazz language, and that makes this duo a fine link between the swing of the 1930s and the jazz of today.
Listening
Made in France · Biréli Lagrène & Sylvain Luc, 1999