This particular song, it's actually a medley, it's "When You're Smiling" and "The Sheik of Araby," when that song kicks into the next song, it just, if you're dancing, you are full throttle. You can't follow a song like this with another fast song, you just can't top this.

I don't know how I was introduced to Django but, to me, it crystallized everything I loved about all the music I've listed.

And these two particular songs, "Honeysuckle Rose," which, when you hear them play it, it just swings, it really swings. And then "Sweet Georgia Brown" everybody knows from the Harlem Globetrotters, but they just rip it up. So to me, as I've matured, as I've learned about the music, I still appreciate Sinatra and all that stuff, but the music that I can just play over and over again, and can listen to in the car, while I'm writing, while I'm reading, or just on my ipPod, when I want to just dial in and focus, and just to listen to something that is truly inspiring and beautiful, I listen to the "Hot Club of France" recordings of Django. 


I learned to dance listening to these guys. This one is a song they used to play back at The Derby, I think it's called "Spanky's in the Kitchen." They never would announce it, I know the sound of it, but I don't know all the names. This is a studio recoding of it.

One of the songs that really had a great swing to it was "It Happened in Monterey." Because it starts off as a simple little song, and then by the end of it, it just builds momentum, it kicks in, and so then by the end, it just really crescendos.

I grew up in New York, so Billy Joel. (5:20s)

My first rock album I've ever bought was Led Zeppelin. (5:26s)