John Jorgenson Quintet at Musical Instrument Museum

Although John Jorgenson is renowned in the pop, country, and rock world, gypsy jazz is the style of music closest to his heart. He recorded the first gypsy-jazz album released by an American guitarist in the mid-1980s. After cofounding the Desert Rose Band with Chris Hillman as well as the virtuosic guitar trio The Hellecasters and performing on scores of A-list recording sessions and six years of touring with Elton John (where Jorgenson was featured on acoustic and electric guitars, saxophone, pedal steel, mandolin, and vocals), he created what is generally considered America’s best gypsy-jazz band. Because of his international reputation as a gypsy-jazz player, Jorgenson was tapped to portray Django Reinhardt in the Charlize Theron feature film, Head in the Clouds....

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Although John Jorgenson is renowned in the pop, country, and rock world, gypsy jazz is the style of music closest to his heart. He recorded the first gypsy-jazz album released by an American guitarist in the mid-1980s. After cofounding the Desert Rose Band with Chris Hillman as well as the virtuosic guitar trio The Hellecasters and performing on scores of A-list recording sessions and six years of touring with Elton John (where Jorgenson was featured on acoustic and electric guitars, saxophone, pedal steel, mandolin, and vocals), he created what is generally considered America’s best gypsy-jazz band. Because of his international reputation as a gypsy-jazz player, Jorgenson was tapped to portray Django Reinhardt in the Charlize Theron feature film, Head in the Clouds.
Jorgenson “has become not just America’s finest proponent of this exceptionally demanding flatpicking guitar style, but one of the world’s truly great artists in the Gypsy-jazz genre. . . . A true modern master of Gypsy-jazz at the height of his powers.”—Dave McCarty, Flatpicking Guitar Magazine
“The former country music notable conducted the equivalent of a master class in gypsy jazz. . . . His famous Telecaster was replaced for the evening by an acoustic guitar on which he re-created the groundbreaking instrumental music of Django Reinhardt’s Hot Club of France Quintet.”—Buzz McClain, Washington Post

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