[NEohioPAL]Hot Club of Cowtown

[The Kent Stage]

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The Kent Stage presents
An Evening with 
Hot Club of Cowtown 
Saturday May 22nd at 8PM
 
They have performed at the Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Royal Albert Hall, Grand Olde Opry, numerous folk festivals, toured Europe and Japan, been on NPR's "All Things Considered," Garrison Keillor's, "A Prairie Home Companion," and BBC's "New Year's Eve Hootenanny" and now they are coming to Kent.  Named "Western Swing Group of The Year," in 2003 by the Western Music Association, Hot Club has released five Cd's including their most recent, Continental Stomp which received great reviews by Billboard, The Washington Post and many other papers.  Their last performance in Northeast Ohio was a standing-room only concert at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park's Happy Days facility.  Discount tickets are still available at Woodsy's Music and The Kent Stage in Kent, online at www.kentstage.org or at via credit card at 330-677-5005.  Tickets will also be available at the door.  Doors open at 7PM.  For more info, please call 330-677-5005.
 
Tickets are:
$15 advance
$18 door
 
Who is the Hot Club of Cowtown? 
   Elana Fremerman:

"I'm from Prairie Village, Kansas and grew up playing violin and hanging around my horse, April, whenever possible. I used to play classical music and have played violin since I was five. My mom is a professional violinist and she and my stepdad played in the Kansas City Symphony and most of the pit orchestras for traveling shows that would come through town, plus the opera and various other things. My dad is really gregarious and wanted to be a stand-up comic when he was younger. I think I got more musical seriousness from my mom and a more hammish performing bug from him. 

In high school I had this inexplicable need to go and play fiddle for tips down in Westport (a hip area of Kansas City) and would drag a friend along and play the four fiddle tunes I knew then over and over. I went to college in New York City where I played viola and continued to study classical music and hardly played violin at all (only sometimes in the subway on the 1/9 2/3 subway platform when I couldn't help myself), But by the time I graduated I wasn't sure I wanted to continue studying classical music. I went to India and studied a style of North Indian music (dhrupad) for a while, then worked in Kathmandu, Nepal. When I got back to the US I worked off-and-on as a horse wrangler and packer in Colorado and played in a cowboy band. In 1994 I was living in New York City and doing an internship at Harper's Magazine and met Whit because I also wanted to join some kind of western band and had placed an ad in the Village Voice. He answered the ad and that was when it dawned on me
 that there was this whole style of music that I hadn't really known existed, and it was this missing link. Growing up I had thought if you didn't want to play classical violin your options were bluegrass, cowboy music, Irish music, or Top-40 country. But when I heard these recordings from the 1930s and early 1940s, with all these unbelievably inspired violinists, and how they were playing far out, wild solos over this driving, locomotive rhythm, and that it was social, dance music, and so utterly American, I just freaked out and have been totally into it ever since."

 Whit Smith:

"I've lived so many places, it's hard to say exactly where I'm from. I was born in Greenwich, CT and lived in New Canaan until I was nine or ten. I lived in Solvang, CA during junior high but moved to Cape Cod, MA by high school. I studied ( if you want to call it that) guitar with Bill Connors in New York City for a winter, but I was a bad student. I'd make a tape of myself playing scales for half an hour then I'd just play the tape while I read comic books or took a nap. This way everyone downstairs thought I was really working hard. It's funny now but I'd tan my own hide if I'd caught myself doing that today!

I convinced some people I had real means of becoming a rock star in Japan during the 1980s. They sent me over armed with a list of coveted phone numbers and connections. I would make appointments with record company people based on enthusiastic goals and credentials veiled in a slight language barrier. But by the time lunch was served they usually had figured out that I was just a thoughtless kid with a single copy of his garage rock band cassette who somehow ended up lost on the other side of the world. It was great fun while it lasted.

I moved around a lot with no idea of what I wanted to do, play, or be. Several years of this found me working in Tower Records in New York City. That's where I heard my first Bob Wills records, also Jimmy Bryant, Hank Williams, Eddie Lang, Johnny Gimble, Bix Biederbecke, and Chet Atkins.

This music was all so different and exciting I wanted to play it all! At first it was the hot guitar breaks and early-style steel and pedal steel that roped me in, but over the next several years I began to listen to the singers and other soloists -- violin, trumpet, etc.--with interest. By 1996 I had decided to concentrate on western swing and the music that influenced its great soloists.

I've been lucky to meet a pantheon of fascinating, talented characters and friends who have all helped boost me along with their teaching and the opportunities they've given me. I played with Tom Clark's "Born in a Barn" band for years in New York City -- weekly gigs where he would egg me on to play faster and crazier. Lenny Kaye and Patti Smith invited me to play lead on a song for her "Gone Again" record. Guitarist/teacher Richard Lieberson in New York City gave me much insight on traditional and authentic playing styles and was my compass for finding rare and seminal recordings. Members of the original Western Caravan have made me feel legitimate, as have Cliff Bruner and Johnny Gimble through their inspiration and encouragement. Even now, living in Texas and traveling the around the country consistently as we do lends an abstract unity with the players of 70 years ago, and I hope that translates into the Hot Club of Cowtown."


 Jake Erwin:

"I was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the location of Cains Ballroom and the home of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. As a child I would often hear my grandparents talk about the Wills brothers and the bands that had been based in Tulsa. Occasionally my parents would sing little bits of Bob Wills' songs, and I don't know if they knew where those lyrics came from. In a way Bob Wills and the legacy of Western Swing was everywhere, but as a kid I didn't realize it.

Growing up I was captivated by the sounds of authentic blues music, but I wouldn't come to appreciate traditional county, western swing, or jazz until later. After high school, I got really into early rock 'n' roll, R&B, and rockabilly music, and it was about this time that I started playing the bass. By then I had moved to Norman, Oklahoma, and bands that had upright bass would occasionally come through town. I would ask these bass players about their sound and how they played, and I listened to and practiced with records for hours to teach myself. I really had no one else to learn from at the time, but I stayed with it. As I listened to string bass music I dug deeper into its history and became interested in country, western swing, jump blues, and early jazz.

Eventually I was approached by a band about playing, and I moved to Dallas, Texas. Soon after, I met the Hot Club through mutual friends and musicians. I guess I've been acquainted with Whit and Elana for about three years now, and I'm glad to be playing with them."



What do they do?

The Hot Club of Cowtown blends jazz, Western swing into fun concoction
by Bill Reed
The Colorado Springs Gazette, June 15, 2003 

The Hot Club of Cowtown is about as much fun as you can have with your knickers on.

Cowtown went uptown Saturday night, bringing their hot jazz and Western swing to the Pikes Peak Center. "It's kind of like playing Royal Albert Hall here," guitarist Whit Smith said. The Austin-based trio turned the concert hall vibe into a down-home shindig in no time. 

Bassist Jake Erwin kick started the band's engine with the indefatigable rubber band he calls a right arm, and Erwin, Smith and fiddler Elana Fremerman soon hit maximum velocity on opener "Little Liza Jane." No pyrotechnics. No dancers or costume changes or elaborate sets. The Hot Club relies on no modern stagecraft, just themselves. That's more than enough. 

Retro outfits and age-worn instruments give the band an old-timey feel. But this is no museum act -- Hot Club's music is vital. These guys crave the stage and the music they create together. All three are in constant motion, bouncing around as if a colony of fire ants is eating them alive. 

The crowd was drawn in first by their energy and then by their talent. The virtuosity sneaks up on you, masked by silly grins and unassuming demeanors. But when Erwin is slapping out the foundation on his bass and Smith drops in a lightning run of bell-like notes on his acoustic Gibson (run through a magical vintage amp), and Fremerman fires up her fiddle licks, then listening to Hot Club is a step away from paradise. The band hit full-tilt on the rousing "Ida Red" and then downshifted into a subtle, lyrical rendition of "Stardust." It was as if we stumbled from a sawdust-on-the-floor barn dance to a ritzy jazz club in a few paces. And that's the charm of Hot Club. 

They started off as a hybrid of Django Reinhardt's hot jazz (Hot Club of France . . . hence the name), Bob Wills' Western swing and 1930s pop ditties. Saturday night's performance proved these influences are melding into something original and exciting. Hot Club has grown from great imitators to great innovators. 





















		
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<DIV>
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<DIV align=center><STRONG><FONT size=4>The Kent Stage presents</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV align=center><FONT size=4><FONT size=5>An Evening with</FONT> </FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=center><STRONG><FONT size=4><FONT size=6>Hot Club of Cowtown</FONT> </FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV align=center><STRONG><FONT size=4>Saturday May 22nd at 8PM</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV align=center><STRONG><FONT size=4></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV>They have performed at the Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Royal Albert Hall, Grand Olde Opry, numerous folk festivals, toured Europe and Japan, been on NPR's "All Things Considered," Garrison Keillor's, "A Prairie Home Companion," and BBC's "New Year's Eve Hootenanny" and now they are coming to Kent.  Named "Western Swing Group of The Year," in 2003 by the Western Music Association, Hot Club has released five Cd's including their most recent, <STRONG>Continental Stomp</STRONG> which received great reviews by <U>Billboard</U>, <U>The Washington Post</U> and many other papers.  Their last performance in Northeast Ohio was a standing-room only concert at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park's Happy Days facility.  Discount tickets are still available at Woodsy's Music and The Kent Stage in Kent, online at <A href="http://www.kentstage.org/">www.kentstage.org</A> or at via credit card at 330-677-5005.  Tickets will also be available at the door. 
 Doors open at 7PM.  For more info, please call 330-677-5005.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Tickets are:</DIV>
<DIV>$15 advance<BR>$18 door</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4>Who is the Hot Club of Cowtown?</FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
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<CENTER> </CENTER><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <B>Elana Fremerman:</B><BR><BR>"I'm from Prairie Village, Kansas and grew up playing violin and hanging around my horse, April, whenever possible. I used to play classical music and have played violin since I was five. My mom is a professional violinist and she and my stepdad played in the Kansas City Symphony and most of the pit orchestras for traveling shows that would come through town, plus the opera and various other things. My dad is really gregarious and wanted to be a stand-up comic when he was younger. I think I got more musical seriousness from my mom and a more hammish performing bug from him. <BR><BR>In high school I had this inexplicable need to go and play fiddle for tips down in Westport (a hip area of Kansas City) and would drag a friend along and play the four fiddle tunes I knew then over and over. I went to college in New York City where I played viola and continued to study classical music and
 hardly played violin at all (only sometimes in the subway on the 1/9 2/3 subway platform when I couldn't help myself), But by the time I graduated I wasn't sure I wanted to continue studying classical music. I went to India and studied a style of North Indian music (dhrupad) for a while, then worked in Kathmandu, Nepal. When I got back to the US I worked off-and-on as a horse wrangler and packer in Colorado and played in a cowboy band. In 1994 I was living in New York City and doing an internship at Harper's Magazine and met Whit because I also wanted to join some kind of western band and had placed an ad in the Village Voice. He answered the ad and that was when it dawned on me that there was this whole style of music that I hadn't really known existed, and it was this missing link. Growing up I had thought if you didn't want to play classical violin your options were bluegrass, cowboy music, Irish music, or Top-40 country. But when I heard these recordings from the 1930s and early
 1940s, with all these unbelievably inspired violinists, and how they were playing far out, wild solos over this driving, locomotive rhythm, and that it was social, dance music, and so utterly American, I just freaked out and have been totally into it ever since."<BR><BR><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=+0> <B>Whit Smith:</B><BR><BR>"I've lived so many places, it's hard to say exactly where I'm from. I was born in Greenwich, CT and lived in New Canaan until I was nine or ten. I lived in Solvang, CA during junior high but moved to Cape Cod, MA by high school. I studied ( if you want to call it that) guitar with Bill Connors in New York City for a winter, but I was a bad student. I'd make a tape of myself playing scales for half an hour then I'd just play the tape while I read comic books or took a nap. This way everyone downstairs thought I was really working hard. It's funny now but I'd tan my own hide if I'd caught myself doing that today!<BR><BR>I convinced some
 people I had real means of becoming a rock star in Japan during the 1980s. They sent me over armed with a list of coveted phone numbers and connections. I would make appointments with record company people based on enthusiastic goals and credentials veiled in a slight language barrier. But by the time lunch was served they usually had figured out that I was just a thoughtless kid with a single copy of his garage rock band cassette who somehow ended up lost on the other side of the world. It was great fun while it lasted.<BR><BR>I moved around a lot with no idea of what I wanted to do, play, or be. Several years of this found me working in Tower Records in New York City. That's where I heard my first Bob Wills records, also Jimmy Bryant, Hank Williams, Eddie Lang, Johnny Gimble, Bix Biederbecke, and Chet Atkins.<BR><BR>This music was all so different and exciting I wanted to play it all! At first it was the hot guitar breaks and early-style steel and pedal steel that roped me in, but
 over the next several years I began to listen to the singers and other soloists -- violin, trumpet, etc.--with interest. By 1996 I had decided to concentrate on western swing and the music that influenced its great soloists.<BR><BR>I've been lucky to meet a pantheon of fascinating, talented characters and friends who have all helped boost me along with their teaching and the opportunities they've given me. I played with Tom Clark's "Born in a Barn" band for years in New York City -- weekly gigs where he would egg me on to play faster and crazier. Lenny Kaye and Patti Smith invited me to play lead on a song for her "Gone Again" record. Guitarist/teacher Richard Lieberson in New York City gave me much insight on traditional and authentic playing styles and was my compass for finding rare and seminal recordings. Members of the original Western Caravan have made me feel legitimate, as have Cliff Bruner and Johnny Gimble through their inspiration and encouragement. Even now, living in
 Texas and traveling the around the country consistently as we do lends an abstract unity with the players of 70 years ago, and I hope that translates into the Hot Club of Cowtown."<BR><BR></FONT></FONT></FONT></TD>
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<TD width=60></TD>
<TD width=330>
<P><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <B>Jake Erwin:</B><BR><BR>"I was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the location of Cains Ballroom and the home of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. As a child I would often hear my grandparents talk about the Wills brothers and the bands that had been based in Tulsa. Occasionally my parents would sing little bits of Bob Wills' songs, and I don't know if they knew where those lyrics came from. In a way Bob Wills and the legacy of Western Swing was everywhere, but as a kid I didn't realize it.<BR><BR>Growing up I was captivated by the sounds of authentic blues music, but I wouldn't come to appreciate traditional county, western swing, or jazz until later. After high school, I got really into early rock 'n' roll, R&B, and rockabilly music, and it was about this time that I started playing the bass. By then I had moved to Norman, Oklahoma, and bands that had upright bass would occasionally come through town. I would ask these bass
 players about their sound and how they played, and I listened to and practiced with records for hours to teach myself. I really had no one else to learn from at the time, but I stayed with it. As I listened to string bass music I dug deeper into its history and became interested in country, western swing, jump blues, and early jazz.<BR><BR>Eventually I was approached by a band about playing, and I moved to Dallas, Texas. Soon after, I met the Hot Club through mutual friends and musicians. I guess I've been acquainted with Whit and Elana for about three years now, and I'm glad to be playing with them."<BR><BR></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=+0><STRONG>What do they do?</STRONG></FONT></FONT></P>
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<CENTER><FONT size=5><STRONG>The Hot Club of Cowtown blends jazz, Western swing into fun concoction<BR></STRONG></FONT><I>by Bill Reed<BR>The Colorado Springs Gazette, June 15, 2003</I> </CENTER><BR><BR>The Hot Club of Cowtown is about as much fun as you can have with your knickers on.<BR><BR>Cowtown went uptown Saturday night, bringing their hot jazz and Western swing to the Pikes Peak Center. "It's kind of like playing Royal Albert Hall here," guitarist Whit Smith said. The Austin-based trio turned the concert hall vibe into a down-home shindig in no time. <BR><BR>Bassist Jake Erwin kick started the band's engine with the indefatigable rubber band he calls a right arm, and Erwin, Smith and fiddler Elana Fremerman soon hit maximum velocity on opener "Little Liza Jane." No pyrotechnics. No dancers or costume changes or elaborate sets. The Hot Club relies on no modern stagecraft, just themselves. That's more than enough. <BR><BR>Retro outfits and age-worn instruments give the band an
 old-timey feel. But this is no museum act -- Hot Club's music is vital. These guys crave the stage and the music they create together. All three are in constant motion, bouncing around as if a colony of fire ants is eating them alive. <BR><BR>The crowd was drawn in first by their energy and then by their talent. The virtuosity sneaks up on you, masked by silly grins and unassuming demeanors. But when Erwin is slapping out the foundation on his bass and Smith drops in a lightning run of bell-like notes on his acoustic Gibson (run through a magical vintage amp), and Fremerman fires up her fiddle licks, then listening to Hot Club is a step away from paradise. The band hit full-tilt on the rousing "Ida Red" and then downshifted into a subtle, lyrical rendition of "Stardust." It was as if we stumbled from a sawdust-on-the-floor barn dance to a ritzy jazz club in a few paces. And that's the charm of Hot Club. <BR><BR>They started off as a hybrid of Django Reinhardt's hot jazz (Hot Club of
 France . . . hence the name), Bob Wills' Western swing and 1930s pop ditties. Saturday night's performance proved these influences are melding into something original and exciting. Hot Club has grown from great imitators to great innovators. <BR><BR><BR></FONT></TD>
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