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Hot Club of Cowtown to make their First Appearance at 31st Walnut Valley Festival
Winfield, Kansas...Swing music has seen a recent revival in popularity and that's just fine with Jake Erwin, Whit Smith, and Elana Fremerman. The Austin, Texas based trio makes up Hot Club of Cowtown, one of the hottest swing bands in the country. The group features violinist-singer Elana Fremerman, guitarist-singer Whit Smith, and upright bassist Jake Erwin. The roots of Hot Club of Cowtown - a name inspired by the jazz artists Django Reinhardt and Stephen Grappelli when they were members of the Hot Club de France in the 1930s - go back to New York City, 1995, where Whit Smith was working to form a larger swing band called Western Caravan. White enlisted Elana Fremerman, a Kansas native who was attending college in Manhattan. When that band broke up the two spent a short time in California before relocating to the Austin Texas area in 1997. Within a few short months, The Hot Club of Cowtown had signed a record deal with HighTone Records and won over fans and critics in Austin and beyond. Since then, the band has toured incessantly, taking time out only to make three critically acclaimed records: Swingin' Stampede (1998), Tall Tales (1999), and Dev'lish Mary (2000).
The Hot Club's first few albums melded the sounds of Bob Wills and Django Reinhardt, Texas dancehalls and Tin Pan Alley, proving that it was indeed possible to "throw away all our rock and roll ideas," as guitarist Whit Smith likes to say, and make like it was 1939 all over again. Over the last few years, the band has gradually discovered its own voice, placing increased emphasis on innovative instrumental arrangements and original, highly personal songwriting. "Ghost Train," their fourth and newest album, has already inspired comparisons to contemporary artists like Norah Jones, Nickel Creek, and Gillian Welch, but none of those really do justice to the Hot Club's incredible virtuosity and authentically vintage sensibilities. The ³Ghost Train² recording reflects the desire of Hot Club of Cowtown to move to the next level as performers. The band was looking for a musical effort that would push them further into the public eye, yet still hold onto the musical style that had already made them a popular staple at venues around the world.
The Hot Club of Cowtown has played live at tiny hipster nightclubs and huge music festivals around the world, including the Cambridge Folk Festival in England, the Moulin Blues Festival in Holland, the Lincoln Center in New York, and the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. They toured Japan in the spring of 2002, and plans are in the works for a European tour at the end of 2002 or beginning of 2003. This yearıs visit to the Walnut Valley Festival will be their first.
The Walnut Valley Festival will be the first performance for Hot Club of Cowtown following the September 17th release of the "Ghost Town" recording. Known for performing familiar and unknown classic jazz and western swing standards, the trio decided that in order to establish their own musical identity, they would have to increase the number of original songs on the new album. According to Elana Fremerman, "There seems to be an added credibility given to artists who write their own material. Whit and I figured, 'if they can do it, so can we.' It was a challenge." Fremerman's four contributions to the new record reflect her growing interest in more contemporary musical styles, although vintage jazz and western swing inflections clearly permeate her writing. The song "Forget-Me-Nots" features some wonderful vocal harmony by Fremerman, reminiscent of the classic Les Paul & Mary Ford hits from the late '40s. "I wanted to write a bright western fiddle tune, something we could all sing," she says. "It's a relaxed sound, but quite different structurally than most western swing songs." Two other tunes, "Home" and "Before You," are romantic ballads that evoke memories of traditional parlor music from the 1920s, with sweet melodies and honest, hopeful, heartfelt lyrics.
Whereas Elana Fremerman's compositions are more energetic and happy, Whit Smith's three original tunes are darker in mood. "I wanted to write songs that would be fun to play based on the chord progressions, from a 'jamming' point of view," Smith says. "I wrote the music first, and then I had to work hard on the lyrics. Much of what you hear on the record was finished while we were in the studio. "Smith is particularly proud of "It Stops with me," a tune which he feels is representative of the band's new sound. "I wrote the melody for that one, and the Eastern European inflections emerged as we worked on it. It went through many changes before we completed it."
Their affinity for traditional styles was initially an anomaly in the current music world, but things are changing, post-O-Brother-Where-Art-Thou. "People are parched for music that is not overproduced and overdone," says Fremerman. "We wanted to make a record that was a little closer to the mainstream, but we didn't have to go too far because the mainstream is coming closer to us." Smith adds, "We are indebted to our influences, and we want the general public to have access to what we play. We have to find a way to inform people about this type of music."
If any particular track validates the band's motivation to synthesize traditional and contemporary music into a coherent and entertaining hybrid, it's got to be their reinterpretation of Aerosmith's hard-rock classic "Chip Away the Stone." Done in the style of a Jimmie Rodgers ballad, their version epitomizes all that is great about great songs -- a good melody, and honest, accessible lyrics that work regardless of the musical paradigm of their delivery. Smith, a former rocker himself, needlessly defends the song: "I don't really care if people know what it is; I just hope it's not considered a ³novelty song². It's a nice song that's catchy and pretty. It felt sincere when we did it, and we made it work."
With mid-west ties, Elana Fremerman, from Prairie Village, Kansas grew up playing violin and hanging around her horse, April, whenever possible. ³I used to play classical music and have played violin since I was five. My mom is a professional violinist and she and my step-dad 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 Hamish performing bug from him². 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 on the subway platform when I couldn't help myself). 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 Katmandu, 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."
They continue to forge new paths through the annals of American music; this September those paths will lead them to the Winfield Fairgrounds, and the 31st annual Walnut Valley Festival. For more information about the Hot Club of Cowtown and their swing styles of music go to www.hotclubofcowtown.com on the World Wide Web. The Walnut Valley Festival will be held September 19th through 22nd. On-line festival information may be obtained at www.wvfest.com. For advance priced tickets you should call 620-221-3250 or stop in at the festival headquarters in Winfield at 918 Main Street.
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