Gypsy Affair
Nick & Gary. Burlington, 2007. Photo by Annie Damrosch.
Gary Entsminger is a musician, author, and computer programmer. From 1995 to 2007, Gary and I recorded as a guitar duo, and in various other configurations. Gypsy Affair has recorded blues, folk, rock, Latin, bluegrass, and, especially, Gypsy Jazz in the style of Django Reinhardt. Some of our recordings are live (2 guitars and 1 microphone), and some are "studio", in which we laid down separate tracks in Colorado and Vermont. Gary is the programmer of the EcoSim software package. Visit Gary's music page for more songs to download.
After You've Gone [3:15] All Over Now [5:46] Anouman [3:28] Blue Drag [4:55] Blues For Ike [1:42] Claire de Lune [3:49] Exactly Like You [4:38] For Sephora [2:52] Me & The Devil [6:58] September Song [5:42] Sweet Sue [3:58] Uncle John's Jam [4:01]

Gypsy Affair Archives
_____________________________________________ Sweet Sue (v1) [5:00] Sweet Sue (v2) [4:27] Kitchen Girl (v1) [5:41] Kitchen Girl (v2) [5:41] Kitchen Girl (v3) [7:18] Over The Waterfall [3:53] It Don't Mean A Thing (v1) [4:10] It Don't Mean A Thing (v2) [5:43] Coquette [4:07] June Apple [4:56] Night And Day [5:02] Forked Deer [3:09] _____________________________________________		_____________________________________________ 2007.04.13. Friday The Thirteenth. This was a worthwhile session in which Gary and I really stretched out on a small number of tunes. In Jericho, on a cold spring evening, we recorded live with just two acoustic guitars, although we did use a Boss DR 880 rhythm machine (set to a "Rhumba" pattern!) for the bass and drums on Kitchen Girl and Over The Waterfall. As with some of those classic old Blue Note Jazz sessions, we recorded several alternate versions of the same tune. My favorites are Version 2 of Sweet Sue and It Don't Mean A Thing, and Version 1 of Kitchen Girl. However, the alternate takes have different tempos and feels, and they sound good as well. The remaining four songs were recorded on the evening of April 19th. They sound OK, but we didn't really catch that musical wave the way we did on Friday the 13th. _____________________________________________
_____________________________________________ Me And The Devil [6:58] September Song [5:42] _____________________________________________		_____________________________________________ 2005.11.09. Live At The Plugged Parkway. It pays to keep that tape machine running! These are two acoustic gems, with Gary turning in a great vocal performance on Me And The Devil. On September Song, I played the initial melody, and then Gary and I traded off the leads. Both of these recordings were unrehearsed, done in a single take. We actually spent the rest of this session trying many times to capture an electric guitar version of Django's Castle, but none of those recordings turned out very well. Go figure. _____________________________________________
_____________________________________________ Bossa Dorado [5:54] After You've Gone [3:14] Exactly Like You [4:37] It Don't Mean A Thing [3:54] Sweet Sue [3:57] Babik [4:19] Douce Ambience [4:37] Night And Day [4:01] Minor Swing [3:17] Coquette [4:22] Minor Blues [3:20] Limehouse Blues [3:59] Claire de Lune [3:37] _____________________________________________		2005.05.xx. Live In 05. This is a successful collection of Gypsy Jazz tunes that we recorded live at several sessions in Burlington and Jericho during April and May of 2005. We had been playing many of these tunes for a couple of years now, and this is the best general collection of our live gypsy recordings. It is hard to pick a favorite here, but After You've Gone, Night And Day, and Exactly Like You are stand outs.
_____________________________________________ Candy Man [3:08] 32-20 Blues [3:26] Ramblin' On My Mind [4:43] Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning [4:12] Hesitation Blues [3:58] Come Into My Kitchen [4:23] Say No To The Devil [3:26] Last Fair Deal Gone Down [4:54] Babe It Ain't No Lie [4:11] Skink Steak Blues [3:38] Say No To The Devil [4:56] All Over Now [5:46] _____________________________________________		2005.05.xx. Blues For Kesey. This is a somewhat ragged, but heartfelt, session that is a tribute to Gary's faithful black lab, Kesey, who had just passed away. Gary is handling all the vocals, except for Say No To The Devil, which is croaked out by yours truly and accompanied by a slide in a Drop D tuning. Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie is probably the best of the bunch. We rounded this short set out with two blues numbers we recorded in Sweden (see the Sweden sessions for more details), and, of course, our classic recording of All Over Now.
_____________________________________________ I Can't Give You Anything But Love [3:34] Swing 39 [3:36] Coquette [3:57] Heavy Artillery [4:06] Swing de Paris [3:56] Them There Eyes [2:15] Sweet Sue [4:23] Claire de Lune [3:52] Nuits de St. Germain des Pres [2:45] Micro [3:54] Peche a la Mouche [2:36] Babik [2:22] _____________________________________________		2005.02.13. BeBop Palm. Near the end of his life, Django Reinhardt began recording some of the "new" BeBop music that was coming out of America. BeBop Palm is the complete set of tunes from Volume 6 of Robin Nolan's Gypsy Jazz Playalong Series. Some of the melodies and leads sound rough, but many of these heads are very challenging, and the tempos are deceptively fast. I like I Can't Give You Anything But Love and Sweet Sue from this studio recording session.
_____________________________________________ Douce Ambience [4:06] Claire de Lune [3:26] Minor Swing [2:51] Dark Eyes [2:07] Heavy Artillery [5:58] Sweet Georgia Brown [4:23] Oriental Shuffle [3:52] Honeysuckle Rose [3:26] Blues For Ike [1:42] _____________________________________________		2004.01.12. Palmetto. After the Palms Up recording, we started using the PS-04 recorder, which had a pretty decent built-in microphone. We therefore moved away from a somewhat processed signal with prominent percussion to a more basic acoustic sound. This short gypsy set features nice rhythm work from Gary throughout. I am playing a resonator guitar on Claire de Lune, which is one of favorites from this studio session.
_____________________________________________ Out Of Nowhere [4:58] Tears [3:09] Swing 42 [2:25] Number One [3:00] After You've Gone [4:18] Caravan [3:52] Oh, Lady Be Good [3:35] All Of Me [4:25] Dark Eyes [2:06] Blue Drag [8:16] Belleville [3:03] I'll See You In My Dreams [3:26] For Sephora [2:52] _____________________________________________		2003.09.29. Palms Up. This was the most highly "produced" of our Gypsy recordings. All of the guitars are acoustic, although some of them don't sound that way. Blue Drag includes an extended second-set jam, and Dark Eyes sounds like Django playing in an acid surf band. The "Latin" tunes (For Sephora, Caravan, and Number One) are especially nice.
_____________________________________________ Djangology [2:54] Limehouse Blues [2:55] September Song [4:09] Exactly Like You [3:43] Anouman [3:30] Oriental Shuffle [3:39] Minor Blues [3:33] Bossa Dorado [4:31] So What [5:05] Ant's Jam [2:06] Uncle John's Jam [4:03] Night In Tunisia [2:40] Minor Swing [2:53] _____________________________________________		2002.12.xx. Palmiscuous. This was a "greatest hits" package up to that point. However, Ant's Jam, Uncle John's Jam, Anouman, and September Song were new recordings for this collection. There is a nice musical interaction between the guitars on Uncle John's Jam, even though they were recorded separately.
_____________________________________________ Jungology (In) [3:00] Django's Castle [3:45] It Don't Mean A Thing [3:56] Exactly Like You [2:36] I Can't Give You Anything But Love [4:45] Honeysuckle Rose [2:25] Oriental Shuffle [3:52] Minor Swing [2:55] Nuages [2:48] Bossa Dorado [4:31] Noto Swing [2:54] 20-20-20 [3:47] Minor Blues [3:27] Swing 42 [2:58] Night & Day [4:27] So What [5:05] Night In Tunisia [2:37] Jungology Out [1:30] _____________________________________________		2002.11.09. Live On The Parkway. Although the studio recordings are great, there is no substitute for playing live with direct miking. This was our first recording of live Gypsy tunes. We were pretty excited about them at the time, but they have not held up so well compared to later recordings of the same tunes. The most difficult challenge in playing Gypsy music in a duet is the constant need to switch the rhythm playing back and forth. Authentic gypsy swing ensembles use one or more full-time rhythm guitarists to get around that problem. Nevertheless, when it works in a duo, it can be exciting. Minor Swing has some pretty wild soloing, but the rhythm exchanges are right on the money. Jungology In and Jungology Out are two-chord gypsy jams, and 20-20-20 is one of Gary's tunes. So What and Night In Tunisia are the jazz classics by Miles and Dizzy.
_____________________________________________ Djangology [2:54] Django's Castle [3:22] Exactly Like You [3:43] Honeysuckle Rose [4:28] I Can't Give You Anything But Love [6:31] It Don't Mean A Thing [3:35] Limehouse Blues [2:54] Night & Day [3:59] Nuages [3:31] Oriental Shuffle [4:16] _____________________________________________		2002.06.12. In The Palm. This was our first full length "studio" recording using the Palm PS-02 3-track recorder. For most of these tunes, Gary laid down the initial rhythm and first lead guitar, and I dropped in the second lead. These recordings have held up very well, and Exactly Like You, Limehouse Blues, and Djangology are three of my favorites. Gary does a nice Tom-Waits-style vocal on I Can't Give You Anything But Love.
_____________________________________________ All Over Now [5:46]		2002.06.xx. All Over Now. One of our earliest recordings, but still one our best. Gary laid down a great acoustic rhythm and vocal track. At that time, I did not have a pre-amp for my acoustic guitar, so I had to use a dirty, overdriven guitar patch to get enough of a signal to record, which is actually how the Stones used to do it. The slide is played in standard tuning. With our apologies to Mick and Keith! _____________________________________________

CD Cover Art
It looks like CDs are now going to go the way of vinyl and will eventually become extinct. That's a shame, because album and CD art is one of the great things that go along with music. I had a good time creating the covers for the first four Gypsy Affair CDs, and a mock-up for the Blues For Kesey session. The art images are from the paintings of Juan Gris, a cubist painter who was a contemporary of Picasso (and of Django). The typefont is "Algerian", which Microsoft no longer bundles with its computers (of course). The Blues For Kesey image was modified from a photograph by Dan Goodrich that was taken during a Kesey-Bear concert in Burlington. If you are interested in obtaining a printed copy of these covers, send me an e-mail and I will see what I can do.

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