Duo Gadjo

Isabelle Fontaine Isabelle Fontaine was born and raised in the French countryside with the voices of Edith Piaf, Charles Trenet, and Yves Montand ringing in her ears. Growing up, she spent endless hours listening to the family's old records and although she had no intention of becoming a professional musician, she loved singing. During her college years, her life took an unexpected turn when she joined a group of friends and started performing as a vocalist. She abandonned her plans of teaching English and instead spent the next twenty years singing and playing the snare drum throughout France, with trips to Spain and over the Alps to Switzerland. During this period, she developped an unconditional love for the Ladies and the Dukes of the Big Band Era, and the great composers of the American Songbook. She was eventually drawn to the gypsy swing of Django Reinhardt and The Hot Club of France, the perfect union of her French cultural heritage and the world of Jazz. Somewhere along the way, she picked up the guitar and applied her impeccable sense of rhythm to the stringed intrument. In 2004 she moved with her family to the San Francisco Bay Area and has since become sought after not only for her singing but for her rhythm guitar playing as well. Jeff Magidson Jeff Magidson was born in San Francisco. His parents, both musicians, taught him to read music and play the piano at an early age. Throughout his childhood he was exposed to many different styles and became proficient on a number of instruments, (piano, guitar, drums, bass, harmonica), . In 1983, he went to France for a year to study and ended up joining a band and staying on another 20 years. He performed throughout Europe both as a solo artist and with a variety of groups, releasing three solo albums and a dozen more with other artists. Over the years Jeff has shared the bill with a wide variety of artists: from Bob Brozman to B.B. King, Joe Louis Walker, to Arlo Guthrie and Stephane Grapelli. Jeff has his own Blues band and also plays with The Hot Club of San Francisco. When not performing Jeff can be found at Red House Studios, where he has held the role of Music Director since the school's creation in 2005. Jeff teaches private and group lessons and supervises the curriculum. For more info on lessons you can contact Jeff at jeff@redhouselive.com. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.