American Gypsy by Neil Jacobs

From flamenco to Hungarian gypsy cafe to near-Klezmer beats, AMERICAN GYPSY provides a host of ethnic-rooted, rollicking guitar songs.

An outstanding production.

"Virtuosity is alive and well, and the evidence is in the record, "American Gypsy is barely short of amazing, casting out original and traditional songs based on or borrowed from the Gypsy music traditions of Eastern Europe and the Balkan States. A must-hear!" - "One of the Year's Ten Best!" "Adam Garrett - Columbus Alive

Award-winning performer and composer, Neil Jacobs, has been professional touring musician for more than 25 years. Touring extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe, he has been featured throughout international festivals and concerts in Spain, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, Germany, and Russia. He has served served with UNESCO's Balkan Youth Reclamation Program in Bulgaria, received grants to study with the Gypsies of Spain, as well as performing in refugee camps and orphanages in the Balkans. All in all, it has been a colorful musical career.

Neil has been featured at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, the Palace of Culture in Seville, Spain, The Kremlin, The World Youth Festival in Moscow, US, German and Russian TV.

His original compositions have been inspired by Roma (Gypsy), Eastern European Folk, Jazz, Ambient and Classical musics. Considered a "magic mathematician" on the 12-string guitar, Neil also plays a host of other stringed instruments.

Some other review excerpts:

"Neil recorded "American Gypsy" with frightening naturalness and effortlessness. The intricacies of rhythm and meter are performed with unforced precision. Jacobs' 12-string guitar, Gips' violin and Douglas' bass blend as though they were made for each other."

The Columbus Alive

"...Sobbing melodies and fiery rhythms"

Wilma Salisbury - Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Unimaginable richness thrown to the winds with complete abandonment - echoes of other musics both modern and ancient" Jazz Lover's List

"...music that brings out the haunting and mysterious qualities of the 12-string guitar"

Delta Snake Daily CD Blues Review

"Makes the guitar sound like an entire orchestra"

Dean Reed - German TV

"Plays the daylights out of that guitar"

Palmer Moore - Ohio Fingerstyle Guitar Club

"...a dazzling 12-string guitarist with an enormous palette to paint from" Rob Harvilla - The Other Paper

"From "jigs to jazz" Jacobs gives you music to keep your feet moving" Austin Chronicle

"...mesmerizing style" St. Louis Riverfront Times

"Twelve-string guitar as percussion, incantation, trancendence over the limits of flesh and blood (you would not BELIEVE), the salty peasant mystery of ancestry, pulled heart strings, shuddering steel strings, fretboard as surfboard to the heavens, guitarist as Magus Pythagorus rapt in wonder at the overtones of creation.. Jacobs is transported enfant terrible with the muscle and discipline of absolutely mature musical understanding" Jazz List Review

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