Bay Area native George Cole and Eurocana to light up Empress

By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor

If you’re from the East or North Bay, you may recognize the name George Cole — not from his music career but from his reputation as a teacher.

In the 1980s, Cole was a popular guitar teacher at a music store in Pinole. In an era of heavy-hitting guitar greats, many young Bay Area guitarists — Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day among them — wanted to learn to wield an axe like Eddie Van Halen.

Cole was who they went to to learn.

For those who know Cole through his music — especially his current musical endeavor, Eurocana, an all-acoustic jazz ensemble — it might come as a surprise that the 52-year-old can rip a mean riff on electric guitar.

So what led Cole to his current project, which invokes the gypsy jazz, “Hot Club” style of Django Reinhardt?

“Django is the first guitar hero. He invented guitar playing. He’s it,” Cole said in an interview with The Herald on Thursday. “He was the first guy. All those things that the metal guys do, the fast runs, the vibrato, the string bending, all that stuff — Django invented it. And he had only two fingers that were useful.” The third and fourth of Reinhardt’s fingers on his left hand were badly burned in a fire, and were paralyzed.

“He’s the ‘Big Bang’ of the guitar. He started it all.”

Cole, who says he writes in the style of the Great American Songbook, said Eurocana’s music “has that Hot Club kind of sound” — a reference to the group founded by Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli in 1934, the Quintette du Hot Club de France. “It is the national music of France, and it evokes Paris in pre-World War II,” Cole said.

In the Hot Club sound, the guitars are written in the style of “le pompe manouche,” a rhythmic form of strumming also called “the pump.” It’s similar to the “boom-chick” in bluegrass styles, and it’s what gives the music its fast, swinging feeling.

Or, as Cole says, it’s the type of music Woody Allen uses as a musical backdrop in a lot of his movies.

Eurocana is Cole on lead vocals and lead guitar, Stephan Dudash on violin/vocals, Mathias Minquet on guitar/vocals and Kaeli Earle on lead vocals and acoustic upright bass.

Cole said Eurocana’s music emphasizes guitar and violin virtuosity. “There’s no drums. It’s all acoustic,” he said.

“It’s kind of sweeping the world by storm right now — it’s really catching on. I had no idea of that when I started playing this style of music seven years ago.”

Surprising for a musician who never saw himself playing Hot Club jazz professionally.

“My background is rock and roll — I taught the guys from Green Day, played on Chris Isaak records, that kind of thing,” he said.

Born in San Francisco, Cole grew up in Richmond. His father worked at Mare Island — but in spite of his local ties this will be the first time he has performed at The Empress.

Recently he paid a visit to Vallejo, a sort of trip down memory lane. “It was nice to drive through the downtown of Vallejo and to see the resurgence there. I know that Vallejo has had its social and economic woes, but it seems like it might be a good time for a rebound,” he said.

Cole looks back at the time he was teaching at Fiat Music in Pinole. “Word got out across the street at the high school that there was a guy there, me, that knew how to play the Eddie Van Halen ‘Eruption’ guitar solo. I had so many students you wouldn’t believe!” he said. “It was great.”

Even so, Cole was never easy to categorize.

“I was the weird kid. I was the kid who rushed home on Sunday nights to watch Lawrence Welk with my parents,” he said.

“But at the same time I was also into what was going on. It was a great period and I remember it fondly.”

If You Go
George Cole & Eurocana will play the Empress Theatre, 330 Virginia St., on Nov. 24 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $18. For tickets and information call 707-552-2400 or visit 222.empresstheatre.org. For information on Cole visit www.georgecole.net or his Facebook page at http://on.fb.me/SQ4lA9.