For the plant genus with a similar name see: Gypsophila

Gypsophila

Gypsophila —commonly known as baby's-breath in the United States and Canada, "soap wort" in the United Kingdom, elsewhere Gypsophila—is a genus of about 100 species of flowering plants in the family Caryophyllaceae, native to Europe, Asia and north Africa. Many species are found on calcium-rich...

Gypsophilia is a Canadian jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 band from Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...

. The band is composed of Ross Burns, Alec Frith, Nick Wilkinson (guitars), Gina Burgess (violin), Adam Fine (double bass), Matt Myer (trumpet), Daniel Oore (saxophones, clarinet, and flute), and Sageev Oore (piano, keyboards, accordion, melodica). Gypsophilia has released two albums to date, Minor Hope

Minor Hope

Minor Hope is a jazz album by Canadian band Gypsophilia, recorded in January 2007 and released in May 2007.The album is Gypsophilia's first, and was recorded in front of a live audience over two nights at The Sonic Temple recording studio in Halifax, Nova Scotia...

 and Sa-ba-da-OW!

Sa-ba-da-OW!

Sa-ba-da-OW! is a jazz album by Canadian band Gypsophilia, recorded in 2008 and released in June 2009.The album is Gypsophilia's second, and was recorded live off the floor at Echo Chamber Audio recording studio in Halifax, Nova Scotia.-Track listing:...

 (2009).

Musical style

Gypsophilia was initially inspired by the music of French jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...

, but soon found its own distinctive sound through unique original compositions and the melding of the band members' varied backgrounds and influences. While "gypsy jazz

Gypsy jazz

Gypsy jazz is an idiom often said to have been started by guitarist Jean "Django" Reinhardt in the 1930s. Because its origins are largely in France it is often called by the French name, "Jazz manouche," or alternatively, "manouche jazz," even in English language sources...

" remains a major component of the music, Gypsophilia has incorporated elements of tango

Tango music

Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay . It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneons...

, klezmer

Klezmer

Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...

, funk

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

, classical music

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

, hard bop

Hard bop

Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...

 and post bop, and its soloists avoid the heavily-cliched improvisational style found in most contemporary "gypsy jazz". The band's repertoire ranges from energetic swinging dance music to more sophisticated jazz, from highly-improvised to through-composed

Through-composed

Through-composed music is relatively continuous, non-sectional, and/or non-repetitive. A song is said to be through-composed if it has different music for each stanza of the lyrics. This is in contrast to strophic form, in which each stanza is set to the same music...

 pieces, but often combines these elements, striving to incorporate challenging modern harmonies and melodies in the context of an accessible, swinging beat.

Debut album

Gypsophilia's first CD Minor Hope was released on May 19, 2007. Recorded live over two nights at The Sonic Temple recording studio in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the album's thirteen original compositions demonstrate the range of influences that inform Gypsophilia's sound. For example, the long-form HIV Jump (D. Oore) mixes classical music with classic jazz and fusion

Jazz fusion

Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...

. Nicole's Song (N. Wilkinson) builds from a contemplative ballad through a somewhat baroque

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

 bridge to a dynamic suspended climax. Sebo Psoriatic Psongs (D. Oore) begins as a dissonant country

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 blues and ends with ‘70s Roland Kirk-inspired blues-funk. Kfeetz kfotz (קפיץ קפוץ) (D. Oore) is an uptempo klezmer romp. Vulnerable (D. Oore) is a fragile and highly-textured triple-metre ballad. Minor Hope (D. Oore) builds on the Django Reinhardt standard "Minor Swing

Minor Swing (song)

"Minor Swing" is a popular Gypsy jazz tune by Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli. It was first recorded by The Quintet of the Hot Club of France in 1937...

" with new melody and harmony, and a solo double bass cadenza.

Critical and audience response

Gypsophilia's music has been enthusiastically received, and most of the band's performances have sold out quickly. In addition to finding a fanbase among jazz listening audiences, Gypsophilia has become popular among hipsters and in the indie scene in Canada, perhaps due to the music's high energy and wild stage antics at their live shows. Minor Hope has also been critically well-received, earning nominations for Nova Scotia Music Awards (Group Recording of the Year, Jazz Recording of the Year) and an East Coast Music Award (Jazz Recording of the Year).