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Martin Abbuehl’s Swing Express

Swing Express is a quartet of die-hard musicians completely devoted to the music of Django Reinhardt. With a violin, two guitars and a double bass, they bring the 1930s back to life. The driving force behind the sound of this four-piece is a pulsating powerhouse of a rhythm section with Marco Neri on guitar and Thomas Dürst on double bass. Melodic duties are performed by Martin Abbuehl on violin and Florent Kirchmeyer on solo guitar. When these four totally committed stringsmen play, their passion rubs off on the audience in an instant. Silky-smooth melodies drenched in melancholy alternate with breathtaking, ever-changing soundscapes and dizzying solo virtuosity.

The musicians

Martin Abbuehl	Violin
Florent Kirchmeyer	Solo guitar
Marco Neri	Rhythm guitar
Thomas Dürst	Double bass

Martin Abbuehl, born in 1961 in Berne, Switzerland Info

After a few years studying the guitar at the Konservatorium Bern, Martin Abbuehl entered the world of folk music, which enjoyed its heyday in Switzerland in the 1970s. Before long, such role models as Stéphane Grappelli, Stuff Smith and later also Jean-Luc Ponty steered him towards jazz. He then studied the guitar at the Swiss Jazz School, mainly because the school had no teacher for the jazz violin. It was during this time that Abbuehl discovered the endless possibilities of the electric violin.
Fascinated by the music of Reinhardt and Grappelli, he formed Hot Strings with Bernese guitarist Fere Scheidegger. Countless concerts and four CDs followed over the next ten years, but then Abbuehl felt the need to try something new. At the end of 2000, he realised his long-standing dream of putting together his own fusion band: Sägewerk.01. Swing Express was born in summer 2004 with a clear focus on gipsy swing. Besides performing with a number of bands, Abbuehl also teaches the jazz violin in Köniz near Berne. He can be heard on 47 of the pieces that feature on the Radio Swiss Jazz playlist.

Florent Kirchmeyer, born in Mulhouse, France Info

Florent Kirchmeyer has been friendly with the gipsy community since he was a child. He started to play the guitar at the age of nine. After trying his hand at a variety of styles from folk to pop, blues and rock, he has devoted himself fully to gipsy jazz since the start of the 1990s.
Kirchmeyer lives and teaches in the Alsatian town of Mulhouse. Before joining Swing Express, he was the much prized guitarist in such bands as Jad Wio, Terno Sinto and the Gilbert Barman Ensemble.

Marco Neri, born in 1973 in Geneva, Switzerland Info

Marco Neri discovered the music of Django Reinhardt when he was 24 and took his initiation into the world of gipsy jazz in Paris in 1997 and 1998.
On returning from a two-year stint in Romania in 2002, he met the legendary gipsy guitarist May Bittel, who taught him a great deal. He formed the Dany Bittel Quartet in 2003 with Bittel’s son. A year later, he met Bernard Dossin, through whom he learned about modern jazz and French chanson. The two formed the band Swing Guitars. In 2005, Neri accompanied the Ecuadorian singer Belem in Paris and also replaced Matthieu Chatelain in the Belleville Trio. He has been a member of Swing Express since 2006.

Thomas Dürst, born in 1957 in Basel, Switzerland Info

Thomas Dürst is a freelance double bass player who covers all forms of jazz. He studied at the Swiss Jazz School in Berne, where he has taught the double bass and ensemble performance since 1983. Since 1978, Dürst has given countless performances as a session musician, on film scores, in symphony orchestras and theatre productions as well as concerts in clubs and at festivals, including appearances at the Willisau, Montreux, Zurich, Berne, Langnau, Schaffhausen, Berlin, Nuremberg, Leverkusen, Riga, Moscow, Mumbai, La Paz and Bogota jazz festivals. He has played with the likes of Al Grey, Hal Singer, Sammy Price, John Tchicai, Glenn Ferris, Sandy Patton, Vince Benedetti, Joe Haider, Rick Margitza, Giancarlo Nicolai, Urs Blöchinger, Peter Schärli, Donat Fisch, Harald Haerter, Hot Strings and Nadja Stoller.