There are lots of resources for jazz, swing, hot club music on the web. Here are some good resources to start with.

Groups

There is a group in Calgary that has some great resources on their webpage: https://djangojazzcalgary.wordpress.com/

There is a hot club jam group in Edmonton. Their facebook group is: Riverdale Hot Club Jam session.

There are lots of players around the world discussing everything Django and hot club on the Djangobooks Forum.

Music and Charts

A good resource for lots of Django and modern hot club repertoire, both the chords and the lead sheets, is the Django Fakebook. Note that Django did not play all of the tunes in this book and some of the charts aren’t quite correct. But it is a great resource and a commonly used resource at jams.

If you have an iPad, iPhone or Android device you can get iReal Pro for pretty cheap. You can get loads of charts from the online forum.

Lots of Django charts have been transcribed into the Transcribed Gypsy Jazz Chordbook.

I have four copies of a Jam book with lots of tunes printed out. Rick and some of the others have some resources as well. We can share charts around as needed.

Core Repertoire

In order to prepare for the camps we put together a short list of nice tunes to jam with during the camp weekends. For 2021 to 2023 we used the following 10 tunes as core material.

Teachers Past and Present

Phill West in Calgary teaches guitar in-person and online. He is very familiar with Django and the hot club style: Calgary’s Best Guitar Lessons. He has been a guitar workshop instructor at our camp since the beginning.

Cam Neufeld is a great violin player and multi-instrumentalist in Edmonton. He also teaches in-person and online. He is mainstay of the Edmonton hot club scene and has done workshops at the camp.

Clint Pelletier is an amazing guitar player in BC. He can play pretty much anything and is great in the jazz and hot club genres. We were lucky enough to have him drop by to teach a workshop in 2022. Contact him at clintpelletier@gmail.com.

Rick Moore is a great guitar player, mandolinist and singer from Red Deer, Alberta. He has been playing in various bands and teaching at camps organized by the Northern Bluegrass Circle Music Society and the Foothills Acoustic Music Institute.

Kevin Jacobson has been playing upright bass, electric bass and guitar for years. He has toured western Canada with Back Porch Swing and Memeza Africa. He has taught numerous workshops on bass and guitar at numerous festivals and music camps. A regular Django jam has been organized by him and some friends in Edmonton for about eight years. Contact him at kevin@albertaswingcamp.ca.