Time waits for no one, as exam week is lurking around the corner… This week (week
nine already) we had a very special guest at Guitar-X. One of the school’s patrons,
Mr John Jorgenson honoured us with a master class. The event took place on Monday
the 4th of December at 8pm.

John has been in the business for 25 years, working with all kinds of artists such as
Roy Orbison, Sheryl Crow, Bob Dylan, Sting, The Byrds, and many more. He has also
been Elton John’s guitarist for six years. He formed “The Hellecasters” with Jerry
Donahue and the “Desert Rose Band” with Chris Hillman. He has been voted
“Guitarist of the Year” up to three times by the “Academy of Country Music”. I think
we’ve established that this man has been around in the music industry and knows
what he’s talking about.

For the first 30 minutes of the master class, John was accompanied by our own John
Wheatcroft. The musical style which the master class was all about, was inspired by none
other than Django Reinhardt. Django was born in my country (Belgium) in Liberchies. Most
Belgians probably don’t know this fact, if they have even heard of Django. Later he moved
to France where he played guitar professionally from a very young age. He formed the Hot
Club de France with Stephane Grapelli (a violin player). The style is known as gypsy jazz.
What was remarkable about Django Reinhardt, except that he was an amazing player, was that he played the guitar with only two fingers. Two of his fingers were paralyzed due to a fire. After this tragic accident he had to learn a whole new way of playing the guitar.

The style of music is very hectic at times, but with a dreamy aspect about it. To me it often
sounds like walking through an incredibly hectic city, while daydreaming of a more calm and soothing world in your own imagination.

John played with a Selmer style guitar, which is the guitar Django used. The Selmer
Maccaferri is an acoustic instrument with a rather large sound hole. He played four songs
for us. One of them was his own composition, A piece he wrote in the memory of Danny
Gaton: -he was named “Master of the Telecaster”. A very talented guitarist who combined
lightning fast chops with an encyclopaedic knowledge of jazz, blues, country, rockabilly.
Danny Gatton has two tuition DVD’s out on Hot Licks: telemaster and strictly rhythm guitar.-
John was announced as an expert on this style of music and in the next 30 minutes we
could witness that this was by no means an exaggeration.

This musical style is very melodic and has a lot of fast runs in it. John explained to us that
Django tried to emulate different instruments such as trumpets, accordions, saxophones
and this gave his distinctive sound.

After a few songs there was a question round. Different topics were covered such as sweep picking, Django’s style, John’s work with Elton John, the Hellecasters, picking patterns. A few questions were concerned with the music business itself: record labels, producers. John also plays mandolin, pedal steel, clarinet, saxophone, etc, on which he talked about for a while.

To end the master class John and John played one of my favourite Django tunes: Minor
Swing.

Kim De Cap - Marshall Scholarship winner 2006