Martin Weiss & David & Danino Weiss Quartett - Smile

Martin Weiss & David & Danino Weiss Quartett - Smile / "Smile" leaves the listener with a smile at the end for sure. Even if perhaps with a tear in the buttonhole - "Smile" is the name of the new album by Martin Weiss and the David and Danino Weiss Quartet. And it also begins with the song of the same name, the most famous composition by Charlie Chaplin. A choice that perfectly describes the character of the album in several respects. First, because the piece, later made famous by Nat King Cole and today played as a jazz and pop standard by countless performers, dates from 1936. The time when Django Reinhardt invented the only original European style in the classical era of jazz: the Gypsy Swing, also called Jazz Manouche or Hot Jazz. Then, because "Smile" with it's highly emotional mixture of melancholy and consolation fits exactly the ambivalence of Gypsy Swing. And finally, because the piece comes from the film "Modern Times", which deals precisely with the interface between tradition and departure, which is now also the musical focus of Martin, David and Danino Weiß. Because hot jazz is probably the jazz style that is most traditional and familiar. With "Sinti-Swing" there is another name for it, which makes it even clearer who upholds and carries on Django's legacy to this day: The Sinti families living throughout Europe. The Reinhardts themselves, the Wintersteins, the Schmitts, the Adlers or the Rosenbergs still carry on the music of their fathers, sometimes still without sheet music, as self-taught and intuitive musicians. One of the largest and most productive Sinti swing families is the Weiss family. Numerous outstanding hot jazz musicians are descended from this family, the best known being the guitarists Häns'che and Traubeli Weiss.