Tuesday, June 08, 2004
Hot Club of Cowtown, Forum both on to bigger things
The stage at the Kitty Hawk Elementary School was set modestly for its final presentation of the Outer Banks Forum for the Lively Arts--for this, its twenty-first season, and ever after.
Next season, the new high school in Kill Devil Hills is slated to host the Forum shows in a real auditorium--not that the presentations in the Forum's original venue have lacked anything.
Forum President William Teague said as much on a stage modestly set up for the world-class act that was to follow him. In front of a pair of orange-and-white cloth backdrops stood three small, rustic-looking amplifiers with a microphone pointed at each, connected to a public-address system. Three floor-mics stood before these groups, behind three stage-monitors crouching at the front of the stage.
An American flag stood at stage-right.
As the clean-cut band slipped to their places behind Teague, he also announced the retirement from the Forum of Vice-President of Programs Sue Meyer, who has done a remarkable job of signing talent, from local acts to those, like tonight's, whose renown is growing the world over.
Teague then introduced the Hot Club of Cowtown. Elena Fremerman, violin, Whit Smith, guitar, and Jake Erwin, acoustic bass, were respectively lovely and handsome in a black dress, white shirts, dark slacks and neckties.
They began with the traditional "Little Liza Jane" (There's a house in Baltimore / Sixteen stories high / And every story in that house / Was full of chicken pie) from a corner of their triangulated repertoire of bluegrass-western swing-hot jazz. They swung hard, and sang the chorus ("Oh, Liza, little Liza Jane") in a full-sounding three-part harmony.
The audience began rehearsing the head-bobbing and foot-stomping that they would carry on throughout the show.
On old-timey numbers such as Jimmy Rodgers' "Way Down On the Delta" and Bob Wills' "Ida Red," hot jazz like William Jerome and Jean Schwartz' "Chinatown, My Chinatown" and originals like "Forget-Me-Nots" the band was mature and assured.
Fremerman's solos trod a line between the parapatetic fluidity of the Hot Club of France's Stephane Grapelli and the dynamics of the Texas Playboys' Johnny Gimble, while incorporating more and more of her own ideas.
Smith didn't bother to try to emulate the master, Django Reinhardt of the Hot Club of France, even on that band's "I Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight"; his own style is distinct, carrying touches of traditional swing with idiosyncratic harmonies and formulations that gave corners to some of his solos. He occasionally used a strong pick attack to produce a little distortion for a phrase or two.
Fresh-faced ("Jake quit high school to join the Hot Club," joked Smith) and perfectly-named Jake Erwin handled his stand-up bass like a stevedore, slapping out incredibly intricate, percussive solos that never failed to rouse the audience.
Add the strong lead vocals of Fremerman and Smith and the spot-on vocal harmonies of Erwin, and the mix couldn't be beat.
Fremerman dedicated Fred Rose and Walter Hirsch's "'Deed I Do" to Sue Meyers, who had said she couldn't get the song out of her head.
"In the music business, when that happens, apparently, people say to take a shot of whisky before bedtime," said Fremerman. "Not me, though."
"Can I have yours?" replied Smith.
Early on the patch cord to Fremerman's pickup went south and she had to vamp while a new one was found. Smith asked if she had failed to do a circle check of her equipment.
"When I was in trucking, we would do a circle check before setting out--walk around the truck and make sure it's OK," he said. "They do it with airplanes, too--you hope!"
They played a "Gypsy song" from Django's cousin Schnuckenack Reinhardt--"Fuli Tschai," which means "bad girl"--and "that Gershwin western-swing song," "Somebody Loves Me."
Fremerman announced near the end of the evening a new opportunity that had arisen for her band. They were going to open a series of shows in August for Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson. Fremerman said the tour dates would be posted on the band's website, hotclubofcowtown.com, and she expressed the hope of seeing many of the audience again, soon.
With that the band launched a pre-emptive encore, a song "as American as apple pie," the fiddler's warhorse "Orange Blossom Special." They stretched the first, tonic section of the verses out to give plenty of room for Fremerman's train imitation, during which she produced some sounds not unworthy of Jimi Hendrix. The declension was given a slight ritard which weighted it nicely. To hear them, they could have been a whole orchestra.
©2004 Womack Newspapers Inc.
Next season, the new high school in Kill Devil Hills is slated to host the Forum shows in a real auditorium--not that the presentations in the Forum's original venue have lacked anything.
Forum President William Teague said as much on a stage modestly set up for the world-class act that was to follow him. In front of a pair of orange-and-white cloth backdrops stood three small, rustic-looking amplifiers with a microphone pointed at each, connected to a public-address system. Three floor-mics stood before these groups, behind three stage-monitors crouching at the front of the stage.
An American flag stood at stage-right.
As the clean-cut band slipped to their places behind Teague, he also announced the retirement from the Forum of Vice-President of Programs Sue Meyer, who has done a remarkable job of signing talent, from local acts to those, like tonight's, whose renown is growing the world over.
Teague then introduced the Hot Club of Cowtown. Elena Fremerman, violin, Whit Smith, guitar, and Jake Erwin, acoustic bass, were respectively lovely and handsome in a black dress, white shirts, dark slacks and neckties.
They began with the traditional "Little Liza Jane" (There's a house in Baltimore / Sixteen stories high / And every story in that house / Was full of chicken pie) from a corner of their triangulated repertoire of bluegrass-western swing-hot jazz. They swung hard, and sang the chorus ("Oh, Liza, little Liza Jane") in a full-sounding three-part harmony.
The audience began rehearsing the head-bobbing and foot-stomping that they would carry on throughout the show.
On old-timey numbers such as Jimmy Rodgers' "Way Down On the Delta" and Bob Wills' "Ida Red," hot jazz like William Jerome and Jean Schwartz' "Chinatown, My Chinatown" and originals like "Forget-Me-Nots" the band was mature and assured.
Fremerman's solos trod a line between the parapatetic fluidity of the Hot Club of France's Stephane Grapelli and the dynamics of the Texas Playboys' Johnny Gimble, while incorporating more and more of her own ideas.
Smith didn't bother to try to emulate the master, Django Reinhardt of the Hot Club of France, even on that band's "I Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight"; his own style is distinct, carrying touches of traditional swing with idiosyncratic harmonies and formulations that gave corners to some of his solos. He occasionally used a strong pick attack to produce a little distortion for a phrase or two.
Fresh-faced ("Jake quit high school to join the Hot Club," joked Smith) and perfectly-named Jake Erwin handled his stand-up bass like a stevedore, slapping out incredibly intricate, percussive solos that never failed to rouse the audience.
Add the strong lead vocals of Fremerman and Smith and the spot-on vocal harmonies of Erwin, and the mix couldn't be beat.
Fremerman dedicated Fred Rose and Walter Hirsch's "'Deed I Do" to Sue Meyers, who had said she couldn't get the song out of her head.
"In the music business, when that happens, apparently, people say to take a shot of whisky before bedtime," said Fremerman. "Not me, though."
"Can I have yours?" replied Smith.
Early on the patch cord to Fremerman's pickup went south and she had to vamp while a new one was found. Smith asked if she had failed to do a circle check of her equipment.
"When I was in trucking, we would do a circle check before setting out--walk around the truck and make sure it's OK," he said. "They do it with airplanes, too--you hope!"
They played a "Gypsy song" from Django's cousin Schnuckenack Reinhardt--"Fuli Tschai," which means "bad girl"--and "that Gershwin western-swing song," "Somebody Loves Me."
Fremerman announced near the end of the evening a new opportunity that had arisen for her band. They were going to open a series of shows in August for Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson. Fremerman said the tour dates would be posted on the band's website, hotclubofcowtown.com, and she expressed the hope of seeing many of the audience again, soon.
With that the band launched a pre-emptive encore, a song "as American as apple pie," the fiddler's warhorse "Orange Blossom Special." They stretched the first, tonic section of the verses out to give plenty of room for Fremerman's train imitation, during which she produced some sounds not unworthy of Jimi Hendrix. The declension was given a slight ritard which weighted it nicely. To hear them, they could have been a whole orchestra.
©2004 Womack Newspapers Inc.
