One of the things that I love about music is that it goes in all directions at once.

Music, of course, is always developing, and there are modern cutting edge variations occurring all the time, but that's not how we discover it. Instead it is a huge family tree where you end up looking at whichever particular branch grabs your attention at the time.
For example, at the moment I'm checking out recent sounds from American Benji Hughes (the new Beck), while last week's column mention of Buddy Holly led me to more ‘50s stuff, particularly Gene Vincent. At the same time I've just got an old collection of Woody Guthrie tunes, have been listening to Madeleine Peyroux's new album and am looking forward to a set of various Georgia blues players from the 1920s which I've been meaning to delve into for weeks.
Music goes in all directions – all it takes is hearing one song at a friend's house or on the radio and whole new vistas are open to be explored.
And there's always some older style in the process of experiencing a revival. A while ago the chart success of the Cherry Poppin' Daddies, the Brian Setzer Orchestra and others brought about a small scale big band swing revival. More recently - and I don't know if it is in great enough numbers to call an actual 'revival” – there has been an upsurge in people playing gypsy jazz. The Jazz Festival this year opened with a very successful concert by Nouveau Manouche and Hot Club Sandwich, which was rooted in Manouche gypsy jazz.
Gypsy jazz is a synthesis of jazz - most particularly swing - French and gypsy music. It was born in the Parisian cafés and cabarets of the thirties and forties, and popularised by the legendary guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stéphane Grappelli. In honour of their band the music is now regularly called Hot Club swing. (In fact Hot Club Sandwich are one of hundreds of bands worldwide with the 'Hot Club” moniker – Google it if you doubt me!)
Gypsy jazz is currently enjoying a renewed world wide popularity because of its flamboyant and romantic acoustic guitar styling. Unlike many forms of music, however, this isn't something you can just sit down and jam; it is music of tremendous complexity and subtlety which requires considerable study and work.
The good news is that someone's doing it in Tauranga.
Veterans of the New Zealand music scene Marion Arts and Robbie Laven have only rarely played together over the past decade but are making beautiful music now as duo Bonjour Swing, performing guitar-based swing, chansons and the nostalgic and exciting music of pre-war Paris.
Both have long and illustrious careers: Marion is a guitarist, vocalist, songwriter, composer, music teacher and music therapist; Robbie is a guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. You may know Marion from her duo with Trevor Braunias or her much-missed swing band The Glamorous Mrs B; Robbie until last year was one half of The Blarney Boys where he played everything from guitar to violin, sax, flute and a host of other things.
But this new venture is not music that is new to them: Robbie remembers his father having old 78s of Django Reinhardt and when the pair lived and performed in Europe in the eighties they heard a lot of hot club swing. Earlier this year they went to a gypsy jazz workshop in Wellington with Leigh Jackson (a Wellington guitar tutor who played at the Jazz festival concert mentioned earlier) and since then the tricky music has been bewitching them. Over Easter they performed a set at the Mystery Creek Folk Festival (in Matamata) and were warmly received.
It helps, I'm sure, that much of what Marion has played over the past few years is loosely connected to this form of music, be it the ‘30s and ‘40s jazz which she has been performing in Auckland with a number of big bands or her forays into French songs. Word is that, together, this is a little bit of magic.
You can hear Bonjour Swing every Thursday night (7.30pm) at Zeytin's at the Mount. Dining is not essential but, be warned, first week the place was packed out so you may want to get there early.