Louis Gaste?

stubla

This seems the best place to post this
i know nothing about this guitarist apart from the fact that he sounds like an excellent rhythm player on the Django recordings i have;theres a nice pic of him in the Charles book as well--did he sing ?
..and did he solo?--any recordings?-any other info?
Stu

PS-Scot and Ted can you PM your phone nos. please!

François RAVEZ

Hi Stubla,

Louis Gasté is mainly known as a songwriter, he wrote more than 1200 songs. One of them was called 'Nous deux' and many years later the song 'Feelings' by Morris Albert was found to be exactly the same tune.
So there was a case for plagiary and Gasté won.
You will find more about him under the name Loulou Gasté.
He discovered jazz music at 15. He learned to play banjo and guitar.
He was one of the few professional banjo players of the time in France.
Josephine Baker noticed this young 18 years old musician and he became banjo & guitar player in her Orchestra.
He was a member from the beginning of Ray Ventura's Orchestra.
He was a friend of Django and recorded with him St Louis Blues and the wonderful 'Bouncin' around'.
Then he started composing popular songs which became hits.
In 1945 when he was 37 he met young singer Line Renaud who was 16 and became the love of his life.
They made some revues in 'Casino de Paris' and even toured to Las Vegas together.
There is a well known photo of Django and musicians serenading Line Renaud at her arrival at Paris Airport.
Loulou Gasté was Citizen of Honour of the City of Las Vegas.
He died in 1995, but Line Renaud his wife is still alive.
Best

François RAVEZ
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scot

Loulou Gaste was also a record producer - he was the producer on a couple of Matelot Ferret's EPs back in the 1960s. I think this meant that he put up the money to make the record.

It's interesting that Gaste wrote a song that was the same as "Feelings". I have video of one of these songs being sung by gypsies at the chapel in Samois. I wonder which tune it was? It's actually slightly different than the one we are familiar with in the USA so it's probably "Nous Deux".