Gypsy Fire Trio

Event information

An eclectic blend of Spanish, Latin and Euro-acoustic gypsy jazz.

In this centenary year of the birth of the jazz master Django Reinhardt, we’re delighted to welcome Gypsy Fire to the Oxford Jazz festival. The band comprises Stuart Carter Smith (guitars), Ben Travers (guitars) and double bass (name to be confirmed). Expect an evening of exciting musical dexterity fuelled with romance, passion and fire!

Stuart Carter-Smith started playing the guitar when he was 18 years old - rather late for a gypsy guitarist considering most of his peers were playing fluently by the age of seven! Although initially he studied and performed classical guitar, he soon fell in love with the music of the guitar genius of Django. What he learned, he acquired by listening to recording of his newly found hero. Like many of his contemporaries, Stuart loves to improvise, and like many of his predecessors, he is searching for new challenges. He experiments with new techniques, rhythms and styles of playing, but always delivered with the solid underpinning of his first love: the music of Django.

Ben Travers was introduced to music at a very early age by his father – a classically trained guitarist. As he grew up, Ben’s early influences could not have been more diverse – a steamy cauldron of guitar greats such as Preston Reed, Andy Timmons and Steve Lukather to name a few and his early performing included stints in punk, rock and mainstream jazz. In 2000, Ben attended the Academy of Contemporary Music, graduating with exemplorary grades in guitar. Ben’s constant drive for new challenges led him to the music of Django and the realization that Gypsy Jazz could satisfy the rhythmic and soloing challenges he craved.

Gyspy Fire have performed all over the world to rapturous acclaim and we now present them to you in the atmospheric setting of the Ashmolean Vaults.