Longtime area guitarist Thor Jensen returns with Gypsy jazz duo

August 04, 2017 12:00 am • Last Updated: August 04, 2017 2:58 pm

By Rick Koster
Day Arts/Features writer

Sara L’Abriola and Thor Jensen (Photo submitted)

Let it not be said that Brooklyn guitarist Thor Jensen is too timid to jump on a (perceived) opportunity.

In 2015, during a 36-hour break in Nashville while on tour with Americana band Quiet Life, Jensen noticed on Facebook that French-born jazz guitarist Stephane Wrembel — one of the foremost Gypsy jazz artists in the world, now living in Manhattan — was looking for a touring guitarist. Further, Wrembel was hosting a jam session that evening in Jersey City, N.J.

"I immediately went into fanboy mode. I sent Wrembel a Facebook message and hopped on a plane," says Jensen, who, in 2007, experienced an epiphany while reading a biography of Gypsy jazz pioneer Django Reinhardt — and immediately began an intensely focused self-taught and ongoing regimen to learn the techniques and repertoire of the style.

The only available route Jensen could piece together from Nashville to Jersey City required a flight to Boston and then a train trip to New York — "where I could shower, change shirts and grab my guitar" — before finally heading to the jam. Unfortunately, when he got off the plane at Logan Airport, Wrembel had replied to Jensen's message with the news that he'd already filled the spot in his band.

Jensen brought his guitar to the jam anyway.

"I didn't have enough time to dwell on what I was doing or I might have freaked out and talked myself out of going," he laughs. "But I went because, if nothing else, it was an opportunity to play for even part of an evening with this monster of a musician."

The session was exhilarating; Wrembel was very nice and complimentary; and Jensen was glad he'd made the effort. It was, he figured, a worthy one-time experience in a career that includes a long stint in southeastern Connecticut playing with, first, the jam trio Incognito Sofa Love, then songwriter Daphne Lee Martin as well as Quiet Life, a Portland, Ore., act that formed in New London.

Unexpectedly, though, two months after the Wrembel jam, while in an Iowa hotel lobby on another Quiet Life tour, Jensen got an email from Wrembel, who was scheduling autumn dates. He wanted to know if Jensen was interested in joining his band.

"I jumped right in, and that was two years ago," Jensen says. "I love Quiet Life and, in fact, played with them the other night. But, from an artistic standpoint, and to understand and assimilate (Gypsy jazz) and this level of guitar playing, I needed this opportunity. Playing with Stephane is pretty much a five-nights-a-week commitment in New York City as well as tours, and it's worked out beautifully. It's something I never get tired of exploring."

The scenery ain't bad, either. Last month, the Wrembel band headlined the Django Reinhardt Festival in Samois-sur-Seine, France. "Being in that whole area — the area of Django and Impressionism and Debussy — there's a tangible feeling in the air. You can feel it. You hear that pulse and experience the different quality of light, and it's magical."

Back in the States, Jensen will play two area dates — Monday in the Tap Room of Westerly's Knickerbocker Music Center and Wednesday at the Stomping Ground in Putnam — in a guitar duo format with Sara L'Abriola, a fellow Wrembel protégé and highly regarded New York player. Their set will include plenty of waltzes, Django arrangements and even a rendition of Chick Corea's "Spain."

"Sara's been a student of Stephane's for the past few years," Jensen says, "and I got to know her when she'd come to gigs and sit in. She's an amazing player and has a beautiful voice on her instrument. There are no tricks to playing with someone; you learn to anticipate each other and listen to each other and utilize the dynamics. You find new ways to have a musical conversation with the material."

Their chemistry seems to have worked. The duo was asked to take over a regular gig that Wrembel had held for years and that's gone so well they've decided to branch out as with the Westerly and Putnam gigs.

Gypsy jazz — also known as hot club jazz — is a style forged by Reinhardt and fellow Romani guitarists in the 1930s that intertwines Musette waltzes, Gypsy swing, traditional French music and American Dixieland. The complexity of the form was further forged by the fact that two fingers of Reinhardt's fretting hand were paralyzed in a fire when he was 18. The adjustments and innovations he subsequently made in terms of chords and soloing were not just spectacular but created sizable challenges for players with four fingers.

The complexity and beauty of the music has had a mesmerizing effect of Jensen, and shifting focus from solo Gypsy jazz practitioner to a member of an ensemble has added new challenges.

"Joining Stepane's band was definitely a big learning curve," he says. "First and foremost was just the sheer amount of Wrembel's material — a few album's worth, at least." He laughs. "And this isn't like, 'Well, this one has a few chords and goes to C.' I had to sit down and just learn. It was tiring because there was also a lot of Django's catalog, which we do live. Between getting that original email and starting the tour, well, I learned about 150 songs in nine months."

Two other major differences are that, in Wrembel's band, Jensen serves primarily as the rhythm guitarist, and, on any given bill, the ensemble might be a quartet, a trio or a duo.

Jensen says, "I had to step back and look at different contexts of my musicianship. When we're playing as a duo or a trio, I'm also the time keeper. It's all part of the basic necessities of musicianship, but growing up as an electric lead player, I was always in the mind set where I just wanted to get to the point in a song where" — Jensen uses his voice to imitate a shredding guitar solo. "And, to that end, Stephane certainly allows me my solo moments.

"But the rhythms are insane in this type of music. I talk to (Wrembel drummer) Nick Anderson constantly about the smallest details: The specificities of a quarter note and how to make that into a canyon. Doing that night after night teaches you things you never remotely suspected about time and rhythm. You're moving at lightning speed onstage — but for me it all slows down and it's amazing. It'd been and still is a pretty overwhelming and humbling process. These are incredible players, we're playing five nights a week, and the amount of practicing I've had to do to keep up with them was unbelievable, but you know what? It's also beautiful."