Alfonso Ponticelli & Swing Gitan
Chicago, Illinois, United States | SELF
Music
Press
Music lovers around the world soon will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of one of the most beloved musicians in jazz – guitarist Django Reinhardt. But Chicago honors the inimitable gypsy artist every week.
So on Wednesday, when Chicago guitarist Alfonso Ponticelli and his Swing Gitan band take the stage of the Green Mill Jazz Club, they won’t simply be prepping for the centennial of Reinhardt’s birth, on Jan. 23. More important, they’ll be re-enacting a ritual that has been unfolding weekly at the Mill for more than five years.
With Ponticelli playing ebullient acoustic guitar, Tony Ballog spinning…
- Chicago Tribune
Discography
The band has 4 releases and a new cd to be released this Spring! The First CD "Alfonso Ponticelli & Swing Gitan" "Carvan" "Sweet Home" and a DVD Documentary. Tracks are Streaming at www.GYPSYJAZZ.US the band has radio play. Live 365 features the band regularly.
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Bio
Formed in 2001, Swing Gitan features bandleader Alfonso Ponticelli on lead guitar and a world-class lineup of musicians on violin, rhythm guitar and upright bass, with occasional special guests. Over the last 10 years, they've shared the stage with many great contemporary gypsy-jazz players from around the world and have performed at the famous Django Reinhardt festival in Samois, France as well many other "Django Festivals" in the America. Including: NewYork, Chicago, Seattle, Madison, Philadelphia, etc... Around Chicago, Swing Gitan has performed at the famous Green Mill Jazz club weekly for over five years. They've also played at the Chicago Cultural Center, the Chicago Jazz Festival and they have had the honor of performing at Millennium Park on its opening night. The band has been ask to perform for the third time (2010) at the largest and most prestigious Gypsy-Jazz festival in America on Whidbey Island. Mr. Ponticelli has been commissioned by the City of Chicago to compose music for the 100th year celebration of the birth of the legendary Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt. With his band and a number of world class musicians from America and Europe they will perform at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion (August, 19, 2010). The band is influenced by the French Gypsy jazz music of Django Reinhardt and traditional Gypsy music from Europe. Alfonso Ponticelli and Swing Gitan are based in America and Chicago but is a band that has a powerfully moving Gypsy sound sounding at times as if they were from a far away land. The band plays upbeat and always leaves the audience spellbound. No band has the wide repertoire and dynamic range like Swing Gitan.
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