yves francois et rocambu jazz has several members, we are more of a tribe than anything else, due to the fact that different sort of gigs needs a different size of band, here is a member list of tribe rocambu ....................................................................................................................
>Yves Francois trumpet, bandleader, arranger, vocal (well, maybe animator)___________________________________________________________
>Frank Youngwerth trumpet, vocal (animator as well) ______________________
>Dave Ramey trombone, vocal (all brass do animate here)_________________
>Jim Christopher clarinet, tenor and baritone sax__________________________
>Dave Smith clarinet, alto and baritone sax______________________________
>Marc Smierciak clarinet, alto sax, percussion____________________________
>Kurt Sepmeier clarinet, tenor sax_____________________________________
>Ben Lansing lead guitar, banjo, mandolin_______________________________
>Simon Kashama guitar, vocal_________________________________________
> Pat McClintock guitar_______________________________________________
>Dan Nicki bass, guitar, percussion_____________________________________
>Ed Sullivan bass___________________________________________________
>Joe Spilberg bass__________________________________________________
> Mike Tooles trap kit, congas_________________________________________
>Teber aka "Tchi-tcho" djembes_______________________________________
> Tim Williams percussion, trap kit _____________________________________
> John Knecht djembe, percussion , trap kit______________________________
>at times our personnel also included friends like ryan mayer, david boch, george lawler, ronnie malley and many other excellent musiicans
Yves Francois also plays a lot of jazz music from the traditional and swing era, mostly bands led the the late great Franz Jackson (1912.2008), indeed check the cd "Blues For Hawk" on DELMARK (CD565), hopefully concert footage from Franz 95th birthday concert may get issued someday as well.
Influences
trumpet player/ bandleader Yves Francois was influenced to play music by the great love he had for the jazz music of the classic era (Louis Armstrong, Frankie Newton, Hot Lips Page, Booker Pittman, Sidney Bechet, Duke Ellington etc) of jazz. he was befriended by swing era tenor saxophonist Franz Jackson (1912.2008), who recorded with Yves as well as mentored him thought the years, and , along with 2 other jazz greats from the early days of jazz (Paul Bascomb and Jabbo Smith) encouraged him to find his own "sound" as a musicians, and to work on the growl and plunger aspects of his trumpet playing. The other music Yves was influenced by was the music of West Africa and the Caribbean, music that played a role in his education about all the musics being inter related to each other, his mother, being born in Paris and raised in Africa, gave Yves (and his younger brother Marc) the knowledge of the relation Biguine (music from Martinique, best known musicians include Stellio, Al Lirvat, Abel beauregard, and Robert Mavounzy) related to traditional jazz. I could write for hours, instead, here are a couple of videos of Yves live to see the more trad jazz elements of his musical life (both with and without rocambu jazz):
first is Yves playing in Dowigiac Michigan in the summer of 2008 with his band (and ex Junior Walker and the All Stars drummer Billy "Sticks" Nicks), playing some blues jazz live:
the second is yves francois live at a jam session playing "Home" (a Louis Armstrong favorite vintage 1932), one of my favourtie songs, we will be playing more music like this in the future, as well as the highlifes and biguines. BTW catch andy schuman's cornet solo, all i can say is formidiable ( don't miss paul asaro on piano and my good friend david boch and frank gualtieri on trombones either)
and while you are at it, check us LIVE 2009 @ QUENCHER"S 2401 N WESTERN AVE first tuesday of every month
Sounds Like
... when the musicians who played traditional (eg new orleans) and harlem jazz decided to play gigs in paris, they encountered musics like biguine, cuban son and sambas. these influences, along with the (relatively) more modern sounds from west africa (highlife, congolese rumba, senegalese and guinean jazz bands of when i was VERY young) converge, they may make a sound not unlike this. please enjoy the sound samples, they would give a better guide than saying what records they sound like ... after all we play to your ears and feet, not just to the record collector yves francois happens to be, enjoy !!!
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also check our video section as well
Record Label
yves francois delmark, y f et rocambu jazz odelion
Yves Francois is a jazz trumpeter who specializes in the growl and plunger techniques, as well as other mutes (cups,derbies,felt hats and buzz mutes amongst other devices), began his musical career recording and playing with Franz Jackson (see the Delmark CD "Blues For Hawk" 565 for the work Yves and Franz did together) and Paul Bascomb. Influenced primarily by Hot Lips Page, Frankie Newton and Louis Armstrong, Yves has cut a career playing traditional based jazzy blues as well as the varied rhythms of all African based musics (biguine, rumba, highlife, samba etc).
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Rocambu Jazz was formed in 2002 as a project to preform the varied rhythms of african based musics (like highlife , rumba or biguine) with a jazz horn section replacing the vocalist as the front line of the band. The music is based on the common threads not the differences that Brazillan, Martinique, Cuban ,Nigerian, Guinean, Congolese and New Orleans music have with each other We hope that you will enjoy the varied sambas, highlifes, biguines and calypsos along with the swing, New Orleans jazz and jump blues we preform on our engagements.
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