Matthew Andrews

Matt Andrews, born in 1991 in Washington DC, is a hot jazz violinist who focuses primarily on the swing sub-genre commonly known as "Gypsy Jazz" - other names include "Gypsy Swing," "Jazz Manouche" and "Swing Manouche." He began with classical violin at the age of 7, but changed course as a teenager when he first heard a recording of Stephane Grappelli playing with Django Reinhardt's Hot Club du Quintette de France. Matt has been honing his chops and playing Gypsy jazz ever since. While he loves swinging in the style of Stephane Grappelli, Joe Venuti, and Stuff Smith, Matt also draws influences from a wide array of other sources. He feels at home playing Bepop and contemporary Jazz, and he has recently taken up incorporating Balkan music and traditional Roma music into his repertoire. Now based out of Baltimore, Maryland, he has been featured with the "Hot Club of Baltimore" (focused solely on the repertoire of Django Reinhardt, this group's alter- ego, "Ultrafaux," plays original gypsy jazz). Matt also plays regularly with other Baltimore-based bands including the "Tongue and Cheek Jazz Band" (Dixieland/Hot Jazz), "Orchester Prazevica" (Slovakian/Balkan - Gypsy) and "Baltimore Swing Drop" (Swing and Gypsy Jazz).

Recently Matt has had the luxury of studying with Belgian violinists Tcha Limberger, Renaud Crols, and Alexandre Tripodi of Les Violons de Bruxelles. Whereas Renaud and Alexandre are classically trained violinists who can improvise like Grappelli, Tcha Limberger - himself a Belgian Roma gypsy - is a multi-instrumentalist who studied traditional Roma music on violin in Hungary. Matt is considering going to Brussels to study full-time with Tcha in the near future.

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