The Gadjo Players is an acoustic jazz band based out of Madison, Wisconsin. We blend a mix of styles including Gypsy jazz, Latin, and even a little bit of Celtic and bluegrass.

We started out playing bluegrass with our good friend and banjoist extraordinaire Matt Amati in an original band known as Large Marge. We were the hosts of an open mic at the Liquid Lyrics Lounge. It was there that we met our good friends from the Caravan Gypsy Swing Ensemble - a band influenced by the awesome music of Django Reinhardt. Caravan's leader Chris Ruppenthal and Mike Kratochwill would jam regularly and it was there that Mike's love of gypsy jazz started to develop.

It wasn't long before Large Marge started to dabble in this wonderful genre. Ben, Matt, and Mike soon added mandolinist Nate Hess to the line up. We started out learning standards but soon we were writing lots of originals. Shortly after we discovered there was a punk rock band who were also called Large Marge so a name change was in order. Thus, The Gadjo Players was born!

We've been playing in Madison and the surrounding area for the last year or so and are starting to develop a good following. Among some of the places we've played are The Brink Lounge, Restaurant Magnus, Cafe Montmarte, Weary Traveler, Cuda Cafe, The Cafe Zuzu, The Rathskellar, as well as some appearances on WORT's Mud Acres show with Chris Powers.

In the summer of 2006 Nate deciced to head off to Redwing, Minnesota to attend a school for luthiery. It wasn't long before fortune smiled upon us in the form of Amber Dolphin our newest member on the violin. We still consider our good friend Nate a member and love to play shows with him whenever the opportunity presents itself.

In February 2007 we released our debut CD Between Two Waters! It features 10 original tunes of ours and was recorded in our own Wavelength Studios. The CD mainly features our original lineup of Ben, Matt, Mike, and Nate. But we've also featured our newest member Amber on four of the tracks. We also invited some of our favorite friends to play on the CD as well including Chris Rupenthal and Ed Fila (both guitarists of Caravan G.S.E) and Matt Amati (aka Beefus) on the banjo. Be sure to check out our CD or come out and see us sometime!