Swing from Paris

The gypsy jazz quartet where one guitar plugs in

Cheltenham's Swing from Paris built their name on the Django Reinhardt sound, but listen closely and one thing breaks with tradition: Andy Bowen plays a solid-bodied archtop electric, not the acoustic favoured by most gypsy jazz guitarists. The Jazz Mann's review of their 2026 album Under Paris Skies singled it out as the element that gives the band its own stamp on a genre usually defined by acoustic strings alone.

Bowen founded the group with violinist Fenner Curtis, a classically trained player drawn early to Stéphane Grappelli's style. Sam Hughes takes the second, acoustic guitar chair, reworking Bach and Chopin into the idiom alongside Django standards, while Tomasz Williams holds the bottom end on double bass and teaches the instrument at Cheltenham College. Between them they cover Gershwin, Cole Porter, Piazzolla's tango and Reinhardt's own Minor Swing, plus Parisian standards by Edith Piaf and Charles Trenet.

Fifteen years of touring together has taken the quartet to the Django Reinhardt Festival at Samois-sur-Seine, the French Embassy at Kensington Palace, BBC's The Hairy Bikers and the opening of Gloucester Services.

Four strings and one plugged-in guitar, and the room still sounds like 1930s Montmartre.

Saturday 19 September 2026 · Cidermill Theatre, Chipping Campden School, Cidermill Lane, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire GL55 6HU · Starts 7:30pm