Dave Kelbie

RHYTHM GUITAR

Dave Kelbie has dedicated his professional career to playing rhythm guitar. Over the past 35 years, he has been a prominent accompanist to many of the world’s leading jazz soloists, celebrated musicians in the Gypsy jazz scene, and numerous artists in world music. He has gained global acclaim across various music genres for a hard-hitting approach to accompanying guitar and has been a significant figure in many key international touring and recording collaborations. Through forming multinational projects such as Fapy Lafertin & Lejazz, The Angelo Debarre Quartet, Szapora, Django a la Creole, Don Vappie & Jazz Creole, The Dime Notes, The European Jazz Quartet, and The Viper Club, he has collected multiple awards and nominations.
 
Self-taught musician Kelbie’s first professional engagements were in 1987 with the great Gypsy guitarist from Holland Fapy Lafertin, a partnership that launched a ten-year period touring throughout Europe with Kelbie’s first band Quartet Lejazz. This collaboration continues to the present day with the recording of ‘A Summit in Paris’ with New Orleans celebrity clarinetist Evan Christopher and a quartet with the great Tcha Limberger and Vilmos Csikos.
 
Kelbie’s band Lejazz and Lafertin released the iconic CDs Swing Guitars in 1994 and Hungaria in 1996. Two seminal recordings viewed by many as the definitive Gypsy jazz albums since the last recorded releases of Quintet of the Hot Club of France these two historic recordings are as majestic for their music as they are for their sound. They set the stage for a career producing music resulting in a catalogue of 23 albums and, out of print for nearly ten years, Kelbie re-released them in 2013 to much acclaim as a double CD, 94-96 The Recordings. He has taken the lead in UK independent label Lejazzetal Records since 1994 to the present day. Through his alliance with Fapy Lafertin have come performances with musicians such as Hungarian violinist Roby Lakatos, Tcha Limberger, Bireli Lagrene, Mozes Rosenberg, Angelo Debarre and Lollo Meier.
 
After dissolving the Lafertin band he formed another quartet with the prodigious French guitarist Angelo Debarre in 2002, an electrifying group that reignited interest in the mostly ignored later period compositions of Django Reinhardt. Featuring the great British violinist Christian Garrick and British bass groove merchant Pete Kubryk-Townsend, the group toured for seven years to much critical acclaim from audience and media alike.
 
The pioneering UK-based multi-national Balkan music cooperative Szapora was a memorable departure from the jazz genre. Formed in 1996 as The Budapest Cafe orchestra, the band was a game changer in the European Balkan music scene consistently featuring some of the finest European musicians and electrified audiences the world over with enthralling performances and three award winning albums.
 
In 2008 Kelbie started working with Sydney-based multi-instrumentalist and vocalist George Washingmachine in the mostly Australian and very swinging George Washingmachine Quartet. The Quartet’s debut was at the Miri international jazz festival where they recorded the album Room 301 Sessions and toured throughout Europe for a number of years.
 
For 25 years he has held the rhythm guitar seat to UK guitar legend John Etheridge and his band Sweet Chorus, and more recently London’s super stylish vintage jazz band The Dime Notes with UK pianist and composer Sam Watts and clarinetist David Horniblow.
With a recent project; a seven year stretch with New Orleans clarinetist Evan Christopher and and Django a la Creole Kelbie has become one of the most sought after rhythm guitarists on the world stage. Described as the most graceful band of it’s time by The Times, it received countless awards as much for the three recordings as for the great many performances worldwide over seven years of touring. In 2019 he partnered with ‘Banjo Hall of Fame’ New Orleans banjoist/guitarist Don Vappie to form the multi-national cooperative, Jazz Creole with whom he produced The Times jazz album of 2021 ‘The Blue Book of Storyville’. Most recently he brought together the great Tcha Limberger and and Parisian trumpet star Jerome Etcheberry to form with Paris bassist Sebastien Girardot the Stuff Smith styled project called The Viper Club.

RECORDINGS FEATURING DAVE KELBIE

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