Ben Holder  - Violin
Richard Smith  - Lead guitar
John Smith - Rhythm guitar
Mike Green - Bass

Unlike many bands who seem need the services of Pickfords to deal with their equipment, Djongology had travelled from Derbyshire surprisingly lightly loaded.  A few minutes setting up, all twenty strings tuned and they were ready to go. Ben explained that their repertoire drew heavily on the hot club material of Reinhart, Grappelli and Co. and we would not be hearing much ‘traddy’ stuff. So they started with a favourite trad number ‘Them There Eyes’ which, however, came out completely manouche with Ben’s acoustic violin showering notes into his microphone and the guitars providing a Reinhart brothers backing aided by Mike, on a busman’s holiday from Fret & Fiddle.
 
The authentic gypsy sound continued with ‘Swing 42’ and frantically paced ‘Hungaria’ to showcase the impressive technical skills of Ben and Richard

. Back to the trad repertoire for  an airing of Ben’s vocal talents on ‘It Don’t Mean a Thing’ and then a wonderfully evocative ‘I Wish You Love’ or should it be Que Reste- t- Il de Nos Amours because Ben sang in French over a classic gypsy backing. It seemed to evoke a distant memory of a foggy November afternoon in Paris with the smell of coffee and fresh bread drifting over the left bank.  ‘Makin’Whoopie’ and ‘Deed I Do’ were given an infusion of manouche whilst Richard’s intricately fingered lead on Reinhart’s ‘Swing 41’ reminded us that Django had the use of only two left hand fingers.  A CD plug by way of ‘Douce Ambience’ gave Ben’s vocal chords a rest before ‘Deed I Do’ where we had to agree with Ben that his vocals were OK but not quite as good as his violin technique.

The Jewish strains of ‘Josef Josef’ gave us another chance to enjoy Richard’s agile fingerwork and perhaps an urge to dance a Hora.

A nod towards Broadway with ‘This Can’t be Love’ and then a dedication to Daphne in the audience with what else but the hot club version of ‘Daphne’.