Eyes Manouche (myspace.com/eyesmanouche) playing Monday nights at The Joynt in Chicago (Dearborn and Erie)

Gypsy jazz, aka Gypsy swing and jazz manouche (which means literally "traveler jazz") is a Paris-based style of music that memorably blends traditional Roma (gypsy) forms (which are already a hodgepodge of various cultures) with elements of American jazz and swing. With its chugging rhythms, sweeping melodies and inventive improvised stretches, this enormously popular and profoundly influential instrumental tradition is as nearly synonymous with the French capitol as accordion-led bal musette, to which it also owes a considerable debt.