Sonny Amati Schmitt, one of Dorado Schmitt’s sons. He’s only 15, but his reputation has already spread way beyond national borders. As his father’s worthy heir, Amati already has some sound concert experience behind him. He appeared alongside Dorado in the Jazz in Vienne Festival in 2010, and for six days of the Django Reinhardt Festival he played at New York’s Birdland Club, where he was congratulated by Leonard Di Caprio, who’d gone there specially to hear him. Several of the well-known jazz strongholds in France have programmed him, e.g. the Festivals of Lyon, Monaco, and Colmar, not forgetting the New Morning in Paris. For his first individual album, Amati Schmitt is accompanied by his brother, Bronson Schmitt, on rhythm guitar, Xavier Nikq on double bass and Dorado Schmitt on Peruvian cajón and the violin. The programme here is a deft combination of waltzes, swing, bossa and ballads in the purest Reinhardt tradition. With Sonny Amati Smith, the famous Schmitt dynasty (Dorado, Tchavolo, Samson…) is well and truly alive and kicking!
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