Story via David Menconi, Down on Copperline, Orange County Arts Commission
The Carrboro Django Reinhardt Festival is a fantastic semi-annual event that offers a solid crash course in gypsy jazz. The festival’s fifth edition is set for March 20-22, 2026, mostly at Cat’s Cradle Back Room, with a cast of great musicians from as far away as The Netherlands. It’s a homage to the late great guitar legend Reinhardt, who pioneered the style of gypsy jazz that’s still played today.
Gabriel Pelli, multi-instrumentalist in The Old Ceremony and Onyx Club Boys, is the festival’s founder, which also makes him its “CEO, creative director and gofer,” he says. Pelli is also the first to admit that his motivations for putting it on are not entirely selfless.
“It’s become a way for me to hang out, play and jam with some of the best players in the world,” says Pelli. “It’s easier and cheaper for me to bring them here than to go there. So yeah, it’s just a little self-serving as a way for me to get immersed in it.”
Onyx Club Boys and Friends: Gabriel Pelli, Daniel Hall, Aaron Gross, Adrien Marco, Brad Cokendolpher, Simba Baumgartner, Jim Henderson, Casey Valleroy, Sophie Dal-Pra, Logan Valleroy
The festival’s roots go back about a decade, when expatriate French guitarist Stephane Wrembel was on tour in the U.S. and Pelli got in touch about getting him to come play in North Carolina. Wrembel suggested not just a one-off concert but a festival event with workshops and guitar lessons. That turned into 2018’s inaugural Carrboro Django Reinhardt Festival, and Pelli has continued on with it.
The Coronavirus pandemic shut the festival down for a few years. After restarting, by last year it had progressed to the point of regularly bringing in performers from overseas – including Simba Baumgartner, Reinhardt’s great grandson. This year has another worldwide lineup featuring guitarist Paulus Schäfer, who Pelli calls a “Dutch master elder statesman” of Reinhardt-style guitar. Also on the bill is Voyage Hot Club, featuring American guitarists Sam Farthing and Jimmy Grant.
Those three musicians as well as Suisse violinist Eva Slongo will conduct daytime workshops at Cat’s Cradle Back Room during the festival. And while it’s not guaranteed, there’s a good chance they’ll all turn up at the festival’s concluding event, a free “Gypsy Jazz Jam & Hang” Sunday afternoon and evening at Lapin Bleu.
Pelli’s introduction to Reinhardt’s music came about 20 years ago, when he was playing classical violin and was invited to join a friend’s gypsy jazz band. It didn’t take long for Pelli to fall for this style of music, especially its best-known practitioner.
Reinhardt was just 43 years old when he died in 1953, but he left behind a large body of recordings and a massive musical legacy. Reinhardt’s guitar style has been a major influence on everybody from country icon Willie Nelson to the late North Carolina Music Hall of Famer Dex Romweber (who recorded the maestro’s “Minor Swing” with Flat Duo Jets).
“He’s like Bob Marley with reggae or Bill Monroe with bluegrass, someone who became a figurehead for a whole genre,” says Pelli. “I teach music and Django Reinhardt tends to come up one way or another with all my students. Some of them really dive deep. I have one student, maybe 16 years old, who has been working on the solo to ‘I’ll See You In My Dreams.’ Every week he comes back with another line or two memorized. I’ve been analyzing that solo, transcribing it note for note, and it’s mind-blowing: ‘He’s playing a minor scale over a major chord, which makes no sense technically, but somehow it works.’ He was very avant garde.”
The fifth Carrboro Django Reinhardt Festival is March 20-22, primarily at Cat’s Cradle Back Room. For lineup, schedule, workshop and ticket details, see the festival website.
(Story and all photos via Orange County Arts Commission)
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