Costel Nitescu is a remarkable violinist in the tradition of swing so dear to Stéphane Grappelli. Anyone who’s seen Costel Nitescu live for the first time, in whatever context – as soloist with Tchavolo Schmitt, or playing with Mandino Reinhardt or Marcel Loeffler, at a party organised by Bill Clinton (no kidding!), or in the gipsy group called Arbat, has immediately grasped that they were in the presence of a truly phenomenal musician A Romanian-born violinist with a solid classical training behind him, Nitescu became first violin in the gipsy section of the Bucharest Radio Orchestra when he was only 16 years old. He has recorded with some of the best Romanian artists around, including cimbalom player Toni Iordache. For the last ten years, he’s been living in Paris, appearing in concerts on any jazz stage where swing matters. Costel Nitescu is as much at ease with traditional music from Central Europe as he is in the realm of jazz, where his sense of swing and improvisational talent mark him out as the best of those following in Stéphane Grappelli’s footsteps.