Gypsyjazz or JazzManouche is the first style of Jazz that was developed in Europe in the wild days of the early 1920-30ies. The influences of that music origin from french Musette-Waltzes, the hungarian Çsardas, or spanish Flamenco, as of the original music of the Sinti, which all together has been mixed and played by the french Manouche-musicians.

Django Reinhardt, is the most famous protagonist of Gypsyjazz or Jazz-Manouche (french. manouche = gypsy), who undoubtedly has left his deep footsteps in this Jazz-style with his very unique, creative and virtuoso way of Guitar-playing bringing it to worldwide recognition and has been influencing uncountable guitarrists even until today.

In the tradition of the Manouche (french Gypsies) the typical phrases and play-techniques of Gypsyjazz usually only have been orally transmitted from generation to Generation inside their families, without ever been written down into sheet music. Thus the access to these special forms of music, their tricks and specials remains secret even if there is a need of authetic material to play the „Django Reinhardt-Style“.

Bertino Rodmann, guitarist from Frankfurt / Germany playing Gypsyjazz since the early 1980ies, has taken care of this job and presents the attempt of an authentic introduction to the style of the JazzManouche with his methodbook "Gypsyjazz Guitar".
The aim of his book is to explain the typical and authentic rhythmical and soloist's aspects of the Gypsyjazz-playing, as well as to grow the respect for the ancient tradition of the Sinti and Manouche, who are the creators of this music.


Many guitarrists that are interested in Gypsyjazz and for example are coming from playing Blues, Rock or Popmusic often have the problem to be able to see thru and understand the many facets of JazzManouche and/or to find a suitable learning method. Of course meanwhile there are lots of CDs, DVDs and methodbooks on the market, but as well many of these aren´t easy to understand for a beginner of this style nor are they really suitable for learning the style in an authentic yet easy way.

For that reason Bertino developed this guitar-methodbook for beginners of Jazz-Manouche on the knowledge basis of his own guitar-workshops in the style, to open up a clearly structured method to learn and understand this music from scratch.

In his book Bertino uses a different aproach to develop the style with more "easy-to-understand examples" of known songs like "Minor Swing", "Blues en Mineur", "Douce Ambiance" or "Blues Clair" - which all together show a very close relation to traditional Blues, to explain the authentic play-techniques, scales and melodies that are beeing utilized in Gypsyjazz.

On 150 pages the book contains many interesting explanations and pictures to explain the utilized guitars, strings, picks and more, as well as many personal remarks, tipps and Tricks of the author. Particularly a great focus is used on the very authentic mediation of the style as to grow the respect for the ancient tradition of the Sinti and Manouches.

A total of 5 songs from Django Reinhardt and the "Quintet du Hotclub de France" as well as 2 original compositions of the author are included in the book all written out with staffnotations / tabulatures of many examples, tricks, licks and more on rhythm- and solo playing. To roundup all content there are also many examples of licks typically utilized by famous Gypsyplayers like e.g. Django Reinhardt, Stochelo Rosenberg, Lollo Meier, Romane and many more.
Additionally the book has an audio-CD which contains 83 sound examples of all exercises, songs as well as suitable Playalong-tracks of the contained songs for practicing.

The book is available in german and, since 2013, also in english language.

Contents:

• Rhythm-Guitar:
• Comping
• La Pompe-Rhythmus
• Dead Notes
• Gypsychords
• Voicings
• Blues-Cadence
• Chord Substitution

• SoloGuitar:
• Reststroke-Picking
• Arpeggio-Picking
• Sweptstroke-Picking
• Scales
• Arpeggios
• Solo Licks (of famous Gypsyjazz-Guitarrists)
• Staff-Notations (7 compl. Songs)