Saturday, November 14, 2009

French Blues- Cadijo

From Northwestblues.com

This release is somewhat of a pleasant surprise – caught live by Ken Peace in a Madrid club, Cadijo turns out to be a French harmonica player who delivers a lovely laid-back mix of Django Rheinhardt-flavoured ‘gypsy’ jazz and swing and rags, with sympathetic and unobtrusive support from Fred PG (guitar), Christophe Coletta (guitar), Greg Schultz (guitar) and the superb stand-up bass of Lionnel Garrigues.

His vocals, in both French and English, are again nice and laid-back – perfect for a nice sunny summer’s day – with his harmonica influences being on the jazz side, with a couple of Sonny Terry style instrumentals. The guitar players acquit themselves very well, although the sparse sleeve notes give little indication of who plays on which track or solo.

Again the spirit of Belgian swing/jazz master Django Rheinhardt dominates the guitar players – and very nice it is too – check out the swinging “Daphne” with both great harmonica and guitar; another stand-out is the country blues of “Louise” and the title cut, “Vagabond Blues”, complete with whistling intro and French vocal.

I would think this will be as hard to find as rocking-horse droppings, but check out the website at www.cadijo.com as a starting point – it is all really lovely and a change from over-loud electric guitars and 100w amps! Yet another name to add to the ever-growing list of impressive European bluesmen – check him out!

GRAHAME RHODES









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