When: First and third Wednesdays of each month, 7-9pm
Venue: Smith’s Upstairs Bar, McGregor Hall
Entry: Free

Step into the cosy, hidden away upstairs bar at Smith’s and soak up the swinging, gypsy jazz sound of Django Reinhardt. Musicians are welcome to jam, provided they have a basic functional understanding of the genre, and listeners are invited to relax with a drink and savour the music. For listeners, it’s the perfect mid-week dose of jazz to break up the week.

Our goal is simple: create beautiful music together and nurture Canberra’s vibrant string-swing jazz community, celebrating the brilliant, captivating music of Django Reinhardt.

If you’re interested in joining the jam session, please read and respect the notes on jam etiquette below.

Jam Etiquette

Respect the genre. Our jam focuses on acoustic Django-style music. Let the “pompe” guitars provide the rhythmic and melodic core (no drums, percussion or amplifiers, please). Core instruments include jazz-manouche guitars, double bass, violin, clarinet and accordion. Other instruments, such as flute, mandolin and saxophone, also work very well in this genre, as do vocals—provided they stay within the gypsy-jazz repertoire (see the Django Fakebook for standard key melodies).

If the group grows, we may rotate players, with a ceiling of six or seven participants. When a tune is unfamiliar, skip the solo and accompany quietly, or sit out and listen until you can learn it for the next session.

While the jam welcomes different skill levels, it isn’t a guitar lesson. If you are completely new to the genre, consider private teachers who cover gypsy-jazz, or the voluminous online resources (e.g. YouTube channels of Denis Chang, Robin Nolan, Sven Jungbeck, Yaakov Hoter, Christiaan van Hemert and many others).

SONGS & PREPARATION

Start with the 24 essential gypsy jazz standards (Volume 1), which include notation, tabs, chord shapes, backing tracks and video demos. The Django Fakebook offers over 200 additional songs with chord charts for deeper exploration.

For more details on jam etiquette, consult this invaluable source of wisdom.