Doe and Hope

Description

The French jazz percussion drum with a painted pine shell having ruby red outer bandings and a veneered mustard coloured inner with further veneered lozenge decoration and metal adjusting tension rods, the drum head painted elephant grey and stenciled ‘Jazz Janot Brech’ in black and red with ‘Elie Dupeyrat Dordogne Musique & Intruments’ to one side and ‘Mimile Jazz’ to the other with a metal makers plaque reading ‘Musiques Intruments Chez Elie Dupeyrat à Savignac-d'Allemans Dordogne’ survives from the early twentieth century.

In as found condition, there are numerous faults with veneers peeling, dirt and losses but she is wonderfully decorative. The drum shows a plethora of clamp ring marks to its edges. She still makes the appropriate sounds.

Elie Dupeyrat was a composer, publisher and dealer in musical instruments from around 1870-1930 with works available in the departmental archives of the Dordogne. It is said that his brother was as fine composer as himself.

France has a long history with jazz music and began to become prominent in 1920s when this drum would have been made. The beginnings of a distinct European style of jazz emerged in France with the Quintette du Hot Club de France which began in 1934.

A thoroughly charming and enormously evocative slice of French jazz, and so bang goes the decorative drum.