Hot, Hot, Hot
Hot Club of San Francisco Performing Thursday, November 15
The Hot Club of San Francisco, an ensemble of accomplished and versatile musicians celebrating the music of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli’s pioneering Hot Club of France, will perform at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, on Thursday, November 15.
Hot Club of San Francisco is brought to Erie by Music at Noon: The Logan Series. The lunchtime performance is free and open to the public, and takes place at noon in the McGarvey Commons of the college’s Reed Union Building.
Django Reinhardt (1910-1953) was born into a Belgian Sinto Gypsy family and learned to play banjo, guitar, and violin at an early age. He evolved into Europe’s first famous jazz guitarist by playing in the musically fertile, polyglot Paris of the 1920s. Stephane Grappelli (1908-1997) was a French orphan who grew up busking with his violin on the streets of Paris and Montmartre before formal study at the Paris Conservatory. The pair’s Quintette du Hot Club de France introduced the concept of lead guitar backed by rhythm guitar, and became one of the few well-known jazz bands of that era to have no percussion instruments.
Hot Club of San Francisco borrows the original Hot Club’s all-string instrumentation of violin, bass and guitars, but breathes new life into the music with innovative arrangements of traditional jazz, classic pop, and original compositions. Hot Club of San Francisco discusses the dichotomy of Gypsy jazz on its Web site: “It is delicate, but the rhythms are played at breakneck speed. It has a swinging, jazzy feel, but many of the songs are waltzes. It is sophisticated, yet has a sentimental quality. (And) the popularity of this sometimes flamboyant, sometimes melancholy guitar music is growing around the world.”
“(Gypsy jazz) is about a balance of excitement and beauty, and Hot Club of San Francisco has found the perfect balance,” the Web site Jazzweek.com recently wrote of Hot Club; in late October the ensemble’s tenth album, Yerba Buena Bounce, was named a finalist for an Independent Music Award in the Best Jazz Recording category.
Music at Noon, an innovative program to introduce classical music in an informal atmosphere rather than an intimidating concert hall, was founded at Penn State Behrend in 1989 by Warren philanthropist and arts advocate Kay Logan. Its unique music outreach efforts were honored with an Adventurous Programming Award given by Chamber Music America and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers.
The series receives major support from the Kay Logan Trust and additional funding from the Penn State Behrend Student Activity Fee, Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts and the Erie Arts Endowment of the Arts Council of Erie.