Swing & Gipsy Jazz

Fresh from her appearance at the prestigious Django Reinhardt Festival in Paris, singer Sara Longo welcomes Charles Fréchette to the stage. Fréchette is a refined Canadian guitarist with a deep understanding of the French gypsy jazz tradition. Together, they create a vibrant and engaging musical journey, following in the footsteps of the legendary Django Reinhardt.

The program alternates between captivating swing tunes, emblematic pieces from the Manouche repertoire, and moments of pure improvisation, where the interplay between voice and guitar becomes a space for expressive freedom and virtuosity. This is an opportunity to discover or rediscover the timeless vitality of gypsy jazz, combining melodic elegance with an insistent rhythmic pulse.

It promises to be an evening of spontaneity, musical dialogue, and tradition reinterpreted with contemporary sensibility.

Born in Montreal, Canada, in 1988, Charles Fréchette is an exceptionally talented guitarist, singer, and composer, renowned for his remarkable creativity and rare improvisational skills. His career has been marked by an international scope from its very beginning, solidified particularly through the group “Tcha-Badjo,” with whom he has toured in nearly thirty countries, achieving widespread critical and public acclaim.

Over the past two decades, Fréchette has collaborated with numerous prominent artists on the international music scene, including Maria Schneider, Samy Daussat, Florin Niculescu, Christian Escoudé, Tcha Limberger, Giacomo Smith, Tatiana Eva-Marie, Antoine Boyer, Mattias Arriazu, Eva Slongo, David Boulanger, Sébastien Giniaux, and many others.

His academic background in jazz includes studies at Cégep de Drummondville (2005-2008), Université de Montréal (2008-2012), and subsequently at the Haute École de Musique (HEMU) in Lausanne (2018-2020), specializing in music pedagogy. During this period, he earned prestigious awards, including the jazz guitar scholarship at the Montreal International Jazz Festival (2011) and first prize at the Montreal Guitar Grand Prix (2012).

From 2014 to 2018, he resided in Berlin before moving to Switzerland, where he played a central role in the development of L’Auberge des Vergers, an ambitious cultural and social project dedicated to music creation and recording. He served as its cultural director until January 1, 2022. During his seven years in Switzerland, he was heavily involved in teaching, working at prestigious institutions such as the University of Music of Valais, the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music of Valais, the Geneva Conservatory, the Fribourg Conservatory, and the AMR (Association for the Encouragement of Improvised Music).

Currently, Charles Fréchette is focusing his efforts on composition and exploring new artistic projects.