Stephane Wrembel's 2012 Django a Go-Go Festival
The song and sound of Parisian hot jazz come to the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Friday night; more specifically, for Stephane Wrembel's 2012 Django a Go-Go Festival. The festival, a six-year-old tradition of New York jazz cafe society, celebrates the life and sweet-and-lowdown music of gypsy jiving guitarist Django Reinhardt and his lusty shuffling rhythms. Wrembel, too, is no slouch when it comes to the six strings and pulsating grooves. If the guitarist's name sounds at all familiar, blame auteur Woody Allen, who pegged the French-born Wrembel to write the original theme song for the director's Golden Globe-winning Midnight in Paris flick (Wrembel also scored the soundtrack to Allen's Golden Globe-winning Vicky Cristina Barcelona). While you can expect Django a Go-Go (including David Langlois on washboard, fondue pot, and musical saw) to tackle Reinhardt's torrid and tender best, surely Wrembel and his crew will slip in a few tunes from his cinematic soundtrack catalog. Plus the cost of museum entry gets you into photographer Zoe Strauss' show in the basement - a bargain at twice the price. - A.D. Amorosi