The Hot Club of Cowtown

Monday , June 28, 1999
12:00 am
Location: Elderly Instruments
in-store performance (free)

Fans of Bob Wills, Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grapelli take note. The Hot Club of Cowtown brings the best elements of 40s Western swing and 20s and 30s jazz to Lansing’s Elderly Instruments this Monday, June 28 for a free, in-store performance at 12:00 noon. The Austin, Texas based trio is in Michigan for an appearance at the Frog Island Festival in Ypsilanti at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, June26. Perhaps no band in recent years has taken the city of Austin by storm as has the trio of musicians who constitute The Hot Club of Cowtown. The Texas capital, lauded around the world for its rich musical history and contemporary musical diversity, took an immediate liking to the band after it relocated there in 1997. In just a few months, the buzz about the band had spread like some prairie wildfire, reaching around the country by word-of-mouth and by those lucky enough to have caught one of their live shows. With the release of their debut album, Swingin' Stampede, the rest of the world is finding out what it's been missing. The band had its genesis in the wild west Mecca of the U.S.--New York City. New England native Whit Smith was in the process of forming an 11-piece swing band when he spotted Elana Fremerman's ad in the Village Voice looking for a fiddle slot. Fremerman had been playing violin since she was five, and had played in several cowboy bands. Despite a successful long-running Monday night residency at New York's Rodeo Bar, Fremerman left for Colorado. Smith would soon re-connect with her, and the two then moved out to San Diego for a year, first performing as a duo and then adding a bass player and becoming The Hot Club of Cowtown. The final lineup was set when Whit and Elana moved to Austin and added Beaumont, Texas native Billy Horton on bass. Musically, The Hot Club of Cowtown draws on a wellspring of various influences, including western swing, hot jazz, traditional fiddle tunes and Tin Pan Alley standards, all done up with a level of energy and vitality that gives the songs a modern sensibility. All three musicians are excellent players: Smith dazzles on guitar with a style that recalls the sound of Django Reinhardt; Fremerman is an amazing violinist of tone and dexterity; and Horton's percussive upright bass work makes a drummer unnecessary. Whit Smith acknowledges that the music of Bob Wills is the take-off point for the band, and his influence is evident throughout Swingin' Stampede, whether directly on such Wills-penned songs as "My Confession," "End of the Line," and "Just Friends"; or indirectly, as in the western swing style of "I Had Someone Else," "Sweet Jenny Lee," "You Can't Break My Heart," and "Ida Red." But while The Hot Club of Cowtown embraces the music of "The King" on their debut disc, there's much more going on here. Peppered throughout the album are versions of such Tin Pan Alley tunes as "Somebody Loves Me" and "Chinatown, My Chinatown"; the standout Tex-Mex flavor of "T and J Waltz"; and some downright killer fiddle tunes like "Snowflake Reel" and "Red Bird."

Check out recordings we carry featuring Hot Club of Cowtown