Daniel Weltlinger's High 5

Historical article recovered from a Wayback capture dated 2018-02-24.

Daniel Weltlinger is one of Australia’s most unique and original musicians.

Born in Sydney in 1977 and of French-Hungarian-Israeli Jewish heritage he is predominantly a violin player with an ear and an eye for a mix of Gypsy-Swing, East-European-Klezmer and Experimental music and is world-renowned for his distinctive sound and improvisational approach to these musical genres. His main Australian-based projects “Asthmatix” and “Zohar’s Nigun” fuse Jewish themes and kabalistic-inspired improvisation within the contemporary framework of styles including Hip-Hop and Jazz while his collaborative efforts with the remarkable German-Sinti guitarist/composer Lulo Reinhardt fuses Latin, Jazz and Gypsy-Swing performing to audiences around the world.

He frequently collaborates as a solo recording/performance artist with some of Australia’s top musicians in a variety of different formats and is highly sought after both nationally and internationally for his technical and musical mastery over his main instrument. Musicians and ensembles he has performed and/or recorded with amongst many others have included Ian and Nigel Date, Edouard Bronson, Monsieur Camembert, Nadya and her 101 Candles Orchestra, Fuego Lento, Buddy Bolden Revival Orchestra, On The Stoop, Menino, I Gitanos, Mike and Moro Reinhardt, Swing de Gitanes, Swing Bien Sur, Waiting for Guinness, Mick Conway’s National Junk Band, The Jews Brothers, Zero Hour, Glass, Chris Tanner and Virus, The Ticklers, Straightback Fellows, Peppermint T, Doch, Reuben Derrick, Oscar Jiminez, Bobby Singh, Slava Gregorian, Joseph Tawadros, Al Slavik, Clayton Thomas, Clare Cooper, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Australian Youth Orchestra, STC Actor’s Company, Belvoir Street Theatre Company, Theatre Of Image, Aerialise.

1 – MASADA NIGHT – Salle Pleyel, Paris June 2008

Masada Trio (Mark Feldman - violin, Eric Friedlander - cello, Greg Cohen - double bass)

Bar Kokhba (Mark Feldman - violin, Eric Friedlander - cello, Mark Ribot - guitar, Greg Cohen - double bass, Joey Baron - drums, Cyro Baptista - percussion, John Zorn - direction)

Masada Quartet (John Zorn - saxophone, Dave Douglas - trumpet, Greg Cohen - double bass, Joey Baron - drums)

Well, the lineup kind of speaks for itself. I’ve been travelling over to Europe every year since 2004 both to see the Django Reinhardt festival at Samois just outside of Paris which happens in June and also to hang out and play gigs with Lulo Reinhardt (in Koblenz, Germany) who has been a close friend of mine for ages. I managed to see this gig as a result of happening to be in Paris at this time as the Django festival was on concurrently and had the choice of either seeing Bireli Lagrene or see this concert! What’s more it was a free ticket since I had met and befriended Mark Feldman some months before in the states - without question one of the greatest violin players in the world today - and he incredibly kindly offered me this freebee. Really don’t know words to describe the music made that night. It was so Pure. It was also obvious that for these guys, despite the countless gigs they’ve done it was for them a really special concert. They were all dressed super casual and pretty much looked like a bunch of guys sitting in a living room just going for it on their instruments completely oblivious to anything, but the most beautiful sounds they could make with whatever they had to work with. There was a lady in the audience who was dancing wildly in the front to the music and singing in between the different lineups being set up. She got yelled at by an audience member to be quiet but the rest of the audience egged her on and let her finish her outburst of song and even applauded her when she finished. It was a very long gig. There were no intermissions and it lasted about 5 hours in total - 5 hours of totally mesmerizing hypnotic music making. Unbelievable!

2 - 3000th ANNIVERSARY OF JERUSALEM CONCERT – Jerusalem Convention Centre, Israel December 1996

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta with Itzhak Perlman / Isaac Stern / Shlomo Mintz / Gil Shaham / Maxim Vengerov - violin, Mischa Maisky - cello, Yefim Bronfmann - piano.

As a violin player to see so many legends in the one concert was totally overwhelming. This was my first time to Israel and was with my mum, first time to Jerusalem and some days before the first time I met my recently discovered family - my only direct aunt and first cousins in the world. The only things I remember repertoire wise, was the Bach double violin concerto played by Gil Shaham and Isaac Stern which was just beautiful. Stern was all hunched over and grandfatherly-figure like and Shaham grinned his head off and they were clearly having a great time playing together. I remember the acoustics were not the best and thinking how ironic that these guys were not playing in a better hall. The other thing I remember is Itzhak Perlman’s playing. His sound was by far the biggest regardless of the bad acoustics and he had the warmest richest tone and was playing in piano trio form with Yefim Bronfman and Mischa Maisky. The night ended with the national anthem of Israel - ‘Hatikvah’ or ‘The Hope’ - which in the context of a 3000th anniversary concert for this ever suffering city and nation was extremely emotional to say the least all politics put aside.

3 – TCHAVOLO SCHMITT QUARTET – Django’s Erben Festival, Koblenz, Germany July 2007

Tchavolo Shmitt - guitar Mayo Hubert - guitar Costel Nitescu - violin Claudius Dupont - double bass

Django’s Erben (literally ‘Inheritors of Django’) is a small festival run by members of Lulo’s family in Koblenz. It is a real Gypsy festival not some trendy event put on by people with hats pretending to be from one culture or another (this is a real problem these days where a lot of musicians who do this, don’t realise how much they are unintentionally trivialising other people’s cultures). Tchavolo is the guitarist from films including ‘Swing’ and ‘Latcho Drom’ by Tony Gatlif, him and Lulo’s cousin Sascha who runs the festival are old friends and he has made an appearance at this festival a few times. (He lives only a few hours away on the border region with France and would go out of his way to come and play and be amongst friends at a festival like this, as opposed to come play at some more elaborate staged event unless the pay is extremely good..) I’d been dropped off after a gig elsewhere and the set I saw at about 12:30/1 in the morning was entirely impromptu. The band and what was left of the audience were completely drunk and it was some of the best Gypsy-Swing I’ve ever seen in my life - both Tchavolo and Costel his violin player were playing their asses off. Tchavolo is really different to many guys playing this music these days who sometimes seem to be aiming to be too clever for their own good or shredders as opposed to making great swing music which is much more where Django Reinhardt was initially coming from. Tchavolo’s playing is all heart, totally instinctual and he swings like an absolute mofo. Gigs like this where he is totally in his comfort zone you can’t replicate in feeling.

4 – PATO BANTON & THE AFRICAN EXPRESS – Concert Hall Sydney Opera House March 2001

I went to see this concert with one of my closest friends, the keyboard player player Dan Pliner (who I play with in Asthmatix and Zohar’s Nigun) and his mum. Again I have no program so I’m going by memory here. It was a Womad-related concert put on at the Opera House and opening the concert for the reggae master Pato Banton were these totally incredible Iranian finger percussionists who blew my mind away. When Banton and his band got up he seemed to be pinching himself that he was actually playing at the Sydney Opera House and had the cheesiest grin as he announced ‘we are very honoured to play..the sydney..opera…house..” Everyone in the audience was sitting as is convention but he would have none of it and eventually convinced the entire audience to get up and dance from their seats - which I had never seen in a Classical venue before. Nowadays this is not so unusual but at this time it was. So to see more than a thousand people dancing to the fattest reggae sounds in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall was really something. (Apparently his band WAS the first reggae band to play the Concert Hall) I particularly remember the bass player who was this massive guy standing heads and shoulders above the rest of the band and had the most killer groove. The band also did some great theatrical ‘stops’ mid song where they would all freeze for a minute or so then relaunch as if nothing had happened.

5 – CHARLES MINGUS BIG BAND – Concert Hall Sydney Opera House March 2009

This was such a beautiful gig on so many levels. ALL the musicians in the band got a go at soloing and all were top players - there was no personality contest or unnecessary agro competition just great great music making. I really felt as I heard these guys play, that Jazz today is in good hands. Based in New York, they were continuing the tradition with respect, humility and fun and they made killer music. I heard day or so later that most of this band afterwards headed to Tattlers in Darlinghurst and played until the early hours of the morning. Me and my friends were a bit shattered after the concert. Had we known we would have headed over. Instead we had a few quiet drinks at, of all places, Lowenbrau since it was the only place open for a beer!