Born in 1958 into an artistic family (a grand-uncle worked as violinist in south-France, my mother a painter) i started to play guitar at the age of 13.
Starting in the early 1970ies i learned the instrument really autodidactic by listening to the records of the famous guitarrists of my youth, Blues-Guitarrists like B.B. King, Muddy Waters and others more.
Later on switching to the hip Rock/Pop-Guitarrists, Musicians like Roy Buchanan, Richie Blackmore, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Carlos Santana and many more.
One day in the early 1980ies, already after countless experiences with Live-Bands and working as a Studiomusician (mainly with Rock and Pop-Musik), i listened to a record of „Django Reinhardt et le Quintette du Hot Club de France“ for the first time.
From this day on the music of Django Reinhardt and his heritage, the „Jazz-Manouche“, becomes a very important part of my life.
Meanwhile i am a well trained musician of this style myself and have been taking part on workshops with Gypsy-Legends like Romane, Stochelo Rosenberg and Angelo DeBarre, as well as learning from my friends amongst other Sinti-musicians.
In 2007 i started giving Workshops/Masterclasses for Gypsyjazz-Guitar and in 2011 released a guitar methodbook with the title „Gypsyjazz Guitar - a Tribute to Gypsyjazz“ at worldwide distributor Alfred Music Publishing (Cologne), in german and english language (ISBN 978-3-933136-86-2).
After years of training (and still continuing to be learning), i meanwhile have had the great honour to play countless concerts alongside with many great Gypsy(jazz)-musicians like Lulo Reinhardt, Jordan Weiss or Fapy Lafertin or play some concerts with other famous musicians like Robin Nolan, Dario Napoli and other well known players of the Gypsyjazz-Scene.
I am running the following Websites of my own formation www.coeurdubois.de , then www.jazzmanouche.de which is a Community-Website with many Infos on old Gypsyjazz-Guitars and news as well as the education website for Gypsyjazzguitar www.gypsyjazzworkshop.net
with online Workshops and lessons also from other known players.
Titi Bamberger, 2010
Jordan Weiss, 2013
Robin Nolan, 2019
Lulo Reinhardt & Doug Martin, 2017
Fapy Lafertin, 2014
Dario Napoli, 2018
Taylor Reinhardt, Pramila C., 2018
Lulo Reinhardt, 2022
Bertino & le coeur du bois, 2022
