New band, the Djangovers, perform on First Friday at TCVA

The members of the Djangovers include guitarist Justin Butler, violinist and renowned luthier Bob Kogut, accordionist and vocalist Lauren Hayworth and guitarist Bobby Steadman.

During the 1930s, ‘40s and until his death in 1953, Django Reinhardt took jazz and swing guitar to a new level, bringing in lead solo aspects of the instrument that many take for granted in these modern times. He is rightly considered one of the best guitarists in history and his influence is still pervasive and impressive seven decades after his death. Other than his talent, Reinhardt’s biggest claims to fame include the founding of the group Quintette du Hot Club de France with the legendary violinist Stephane Grappelli as well as writing instrumental jazz standards such as “Minor Swing.”

The Djangovers take Reinhardt’s music a step further.

“In a lot of the manouche-style jazz community there are a lot of purists, but we’re not really purists because we have a lot of other musical influences,” Butler said. “We take a slightly different angle with the music. We use the traditional instrumentation with the violin and the gypsy-style guitars and a stand-up bass, but we also have an accordion player who sings in French and English.”

The Djangovers describe their music as “Appalachian swing and Hot Club Jazz.” The group combines the music of the mountains with jazz while still paying tribute to all things Reinhardt.

“We will take some more traditional Appalachian music and mix it in,” Butler said. “There has been a crossover between the two genres, anyway. If you listen to Doc Watson, he would play some numbers that were jazzier than folk or bluegrass. The same thing happened with Chet Atkins and other performers along those lines. I don’t know if it is really a recognized genre, but it is a recognized style in my opinion (sometimes referred to as ‘hillbilly jazz’). We have quite a few original songs that we have been writing over the past few months that we are performing live. That is our next goal; to put together about ten or twelve songs so we can make a CD of all original string swing music. It is a ton of fun; the enjoyment of playing with your friends and of playing music. That is really what draws me and the other band members to the style. This is a type of music that you can play around a campfire. It is supposed to be fun, and we don’t take ourselves too seriously.”

The event will also be a chance for the public to view six galleries of contemporary art created by talented people based locally, regionally and overseas. Taking place from 6 to 9 p.m. during the monthly downtown Boone Art Crawl celebration, this informal get-together will allow the visitor to eat food, buy a drink, listen to wonderful music and meet some of the artists featured at the center.

Some of the exhibits will include “At the Junction of Words and Pictures” presented by the Tenth Anniversary of the Center for Cartoon Studies, “Sightings” by Ruth Ava Lyons, “Back to Boone – Editorial Cartoons by Andrew David Cox,” “Intervention” by Kirsten Stolle and “The Performance Review” by Endia Beal.

For more information, visit the Gallery Times on page 8B.