'It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing'

Probably the best guitar player that most people have never heard of wasn't a hedonistic rock star. In fact, he died before rock and roll ever got off the ground.

His name is Django Reinhardt, and even though he's known mostly to jazz lovers and guitar geeks, his legacy of a new style called Gypsy swing is still carried on today by modern musicians like Harmonious Wail.

Wail, a quartet of jazzers based in Wisconsin, travels the globe playing their Gypsy swing with a twist of vocals. On Thursday, they're bringing that style to Cape Girardeau for Wail's first concert in the area.

To those not familiar with the style, it can be surprising. Gypsy swing is both complex and energetic, with leads that skip lightly and quickly over the length of the guitar's fretboard and driving time signatures that compel physical movement, even if it is just toe tapping.

"It has to do with kind of a fiery melodic style often likened to flamenco guitar, with very rapid single-note picking and fluid arpeggios up and down the neck," guitarist Tom Waselchuck said of the Gypsy swing style.

Gypsy swing, which is also the name of the Wail's newest record, owes its foundation to Reinhardt, just as Wail does. Reinhardt was born a Gypsy in Belgium in 1910. From early on, Reinhardt was recognized as a virtuoso jazz guitar player and would later be known as one of the best players of the instrument -- and this with two paralyzed fingers on his left hand.

Reinhardt was one of the first players to view the guitar as a lead instrument in jazz, where it had once been confined largely to the role of rhythmic accompaniment. While attaining that status, Reinhardt also became the only European to create a style of jazz. All other jazz styles are American-born, but Reinhardt's Gypsy swing took the easygoing, upbeat and danceable style of American swing jazz and melded it with the energetic, melodic and lightning-quick guitar licks of his Gypsy background.

"What it amounted to was that European musicians started listening to American jazz, like Louis Armstrong, the people who started jazz, who formulated it," Waselchuck said. "Django in particular was a sponge. When he heard American jazz he started playing that repertoire with his already developed Gypsy style."

Some were skeptical about the Gypsy's new role for guitar as a solo instrument.

"Django is one of those people who didn't care what other people said," Waselchuck said. The result is a strange cross between a pre-World War II dance hall and a lonely Eastern European night by a campfire.

After creating this genre, Reinhardt's talents were sought out by jazz greats like Duke Ellington and guitar heroes like Les Paul.

Reinhardt's guitar innovation and virtuosity gripped Sims Delaney-Potthoff, the man who formed Harmonious Wail, to carry on the style, switching his band, with wife Maggie on vocals, from an American swing group to a Gypsy swing band in the early 1990s.

Wail's newest disc contains a brief history of Reinhardt's musical innovation and images of the guitar great. The influence also shows in the music.

Through the entirety of "Gypsy Swing," the guitar and mandolin work of Delaney-Potthoff and Waselchuck dances and strums through upbeat rhythmic peaks and a blinding blizzard of notes on gypsy traditionals, originals and old jazz standards like W.C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues." Wail may hail from Wisconsin, but the music bears the mark of two continents.

Adding to Wail's uncanny adhesion in the face of complex rhythms and melodies is the sultry vocal power of Maggie. Her voice is equally adept at full-bodied, raucous power or sunshiny cheer, depending on the mood of the song. The vocals, said Waselchuck, are one of the most essential parts of the group's sound.

"The band has always been a vocal powerhouse, and much of the rhythmic style and repertoire come from that," Waselchuck said. "We love a good song."

Waselchuck said the chemistry between Sims, Maggie, himself and bassist John Mesoloras shows on stage, with the band members exhibiting a sort of telepathy when jamming out on Gypsy jazz numbers. That mental link between band members was one of the things that persuaded Waselchuck to join Wail six years ago.

"What I noticed was, as a unit, Harmonious Wail has a way of connecting with each other on stage and sharing a lot of musical and joyous energy with audiences," said Waselchuck.

Unlike some jazz groups, Wail doesn't just stand still on stage, but engages in movement throughout the set. With Gypsy swing, it would be impossible not to move.

"From our perspective, there's no way around it," Waselchuck said. "We feed on the energy of the music and give it back."

Audiences around the world have felt that energy, including a packed house at the Chang Kai-Shek National Concert Hall in Taiwan and the throngs at the Zelt Musik Festival in Freiburg, Germany.

The energetic music and performance was enough to persuade concert organizers in Cape Girardeau to move to group into a bigger venue than was originally scheduled. Harmonious Wail initially contacted Larry Underberg to play a house concert, but Underberg thought a group like Harmonious Wail would require a bigger venue.

After working with Southeast Missouri State University and the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri, a concert was arranged at the University Center Ballroom.

Underberg feels confident that local audiences will have the same enthusiasm for Gypsy swing as audiences around the world.

"This will be a fun event for the entire community," Underberg said.

Tickets can be purchased at the Arts Council office at 32 N. Main St. Doors open Thursday at 6:30 p.m., and the show starts at 7 p.m. For more information, call 334-9233.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182