Bireli lagrene biography

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When Bireli Lagrene’s Routes to Django: Live was issued in 1980, the 13-year-old jazz guitarist was immediately praised by critics as a protégé of Django Reinhardt. He had already won a prize in a festival at Strasbourg in 1978, and his appearance at a Gypsy festival was broadcast on television. For the next five years, Lagrene would mime Reinhardt’s style, even recording versions of the master’s “Nuages” and “Djangology” on Swing ’81. Over time, however, his role as a protégé began to seem limited. “When I was a kid,” Lagrene later recalled, “I used to put on the record again and again, until I succeeded in redoing him Reinhardt]. Afterwards, I understood that respecting the great guitarist was worth much more than imitating him….”

Lagrene was born a Sinti Gypsy on September 4, 1966, in Alsace. His father had been a prominent guitarist during the 1930s, and Lagrene started playing guitar at four or five

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Bireli Lagrene

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Bireli Lagrene was born on September 4, 1966 in Saverne, Alsace, France. The son of Fiso Lagrene, a popular guitarist in pre-war France, Lagrene displayed a prodigious talent as a very young child. Born into a gypsy community, his origins and his fleet, inventive playing style inevitably generated comparisons with Django Reinhardt. In 1978, he won a prize at a festival at Strasbourg and subsequently made a big impact during a televised gypsy festival.

In his early teenage years Lagrene toured extensively playing concerts and festivals across Europe, often accompanied by distinguished jazz artists such as Benny Carter, Benny Goodman, Stéphane Grappelli and Niels- Henning Orsted Pedersen. He also made his first record Routes To Django, which helped to prove that early estimates of his capabilities were not excessive.

An outstanding technician, Lagrene has revealed influences other than Reinhardt, happily i

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Biréli Lagrène

French born jazz guitarist (born 1966)

Musical artist

Biréli Lagrène (born 4 September 1966)^[1] is a French jazz guitarist who came to prominence in the 1980s for his Django Reinhardt–influenced style. He often performs in swing, jazz fusion, and post-bop styles.

Biography

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Lagrène was born in Soufflenheim, Alsace, France, into a Romani family and community. His father and grandfather were guitarists, and he was raised in the Gypsy gitarr tradition. He started playing at age four or five and by sju was improvising jazz in a style similar to that of Django Reinhardt, whom his father admired and wanted his sons to emulate. In 1980, while in his early teens, he recorded his first skiva, Routes to Django: Live at the Krokodil (Jazzpoint, 1981).^[2]^[3]

During the next few years, Lagrène toured with Al Di Meola, Paco de Lucía, and John McLaughlin, all of them guitarists, and played with Benny Carter, Benny Goodman, and Stép