He may reside in Maplewood but guitarist Stephane Wrembel is all about New Orleans and Paris as he brings his exquisite nonet to New York City on October 3 at Le Poisson Rouge. Wrembel has singlehandedly kept the Gypsy Jazz tradition of Django Reinhardt alive but fused it with Louisiana love.

The term “genius” is tossed around pretty frequently these days. Yet a true genius either invents his own genre like Bill Monroe (bluegrass) or furthers an existing genre into the future by making it palatable again but with a new personal touch so that it is forever irrevocably altered. Guitarist Stephane Wrembel is in the latter category. The Maplewood resident has fully inhabited the gypsy-jazz aesthetic of Django Reinhardt [1910-1953] to the point where he is, indeed, the living personification of Gypsy Jazz.

Stephane Wrembel may have been born in Paris but he’s lived in Maplewood in Essex County for years. Considered by many to be the greatest living acoustic guitarist in the world, he’s made a career out of furthering the sound of the legendary three-fingered Belgian guitar hero Django Reinhardt [1910-1953]. Django, in his pioneering band with French violinist Stephane Grappelli, the Quintette du Hot Club de France, invented the sub-genre known as Gypsy Jazz.