Hot tempo

Cowtown know how to Western swing

by David Ritchie

"Swing" is the simple description used by the promoters of the Green River Festival to describe the Hot Club of Cowtown.

Well, that's about half right: dancers certainly won't be disappointed. But Western swing is a better description as it's a term coined for the cowboy musicians who incorporated the big-band swing beat they heard on 1930s radio. And the Hot Club are one of the hottest three-piece Western swing bands to try to carry on that Southern tradition. And that's just part of the story -- they also know their way around traditional fiddle tunes, Tin Pan Alley standards, and the hot jazz of the old violin/guitar combos.

With their new CD, Tall Tales (Hightone, available August 3), they have bested their previous effort (Swingin' Stampede) by a long shot. And that was a great CD too.

One huge difference is in the sound of Billy Horton's upright bass. If you accept the idea that a great slap bassist can make a drummer somewhat redundant, then you'll appreciate what he achieves. Guitarist and vocalist Whit Smith explains they simply allowed Horton to record it properly this time. "We played in a lively wooden room and put a big old RCA 44 microphone in front of him. And in 15 minutes on the first day he had the sound that he used for the whole session, pretty much, because it had a lot of ambiance," Smith says. "You can hear the strings, and you can hear the air coming out of the F-hole." The percussive difference from the first CD is so striking that I checked the liner notes for a personnel change.

Though they call Austin home now, Hot Club of Cowtown actually started in New York City, where New England native Smith put together Western Caravan, an 11-piece swing band, and hooked up with violinist Elana Fremerman. After a long-running gig at Manhattan's Rodeo Bar, Fremerman left the band and took off for Colorado, only to reconnect with Smith in San Diego. It was there they came up with the name, Hot Club of Cowtown, partly in tribute to their heroes, Gypsy/jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli of the Quintet of the Hot Club of France.

Fremerman's style is rooted in the jazz swing traditions of violinist Joe Venuti, as well as his Western swing disciples, Cecil Brower and Cliff Bruner. Brower had listened carefully to Venuti's recordings and brought that style to the great band of Milton Brown and his Musical Brownies. Bruner had already perfected many Texas styles when he joined the Brownies in 1936 and learned from Brower. And 60 years later, Fremerman has had the opportunity to play with Bruner, now in his 80s and still going strong.

Smith, who handles both rhythm and lead guitar, names several jazz players as his influences: Eddie Lang and George Barnes (who both accompanied Venuti) and Reinhardt (who's best known for his work with Grappelli). Lang, especially, was one of the first jazz players to turn what was primarily a rhythm instrument into one that could provide flowing single-line solos. On the country side, Smith references guitarist Hank Garland as well as a couple of the fiddlers who played with Bob Wills in the '40s: Louis Tierney and Joe Holley. "Not Joe Holley so much. I sure like to listen to him, but I can't repeat what he does. Louis Tierney has a certain color about [his playing] that I sort of can hear when I play guitar."

Tall Tales was recorded live (with very few overdubs) at Baby Monster Studios in New York City. For that, they needed a producer familiar with old microphones and vintage equipment and recording techniques (the first CD was self-produced), so they enlisted Dave Stuckey, formerly half of the Dave & Deke Combo (with Deke Dickerson).

Fleshing out the personnel on the new CD are three guest musicians Hot Club knew from their days in New York. Joe Kerr (piano) and Marty Laster (violin) were both in Western Caravan. Peter Ecklund does a great job on cornet, especially on Smith's original tunes "Emily" and "When I Lost You." There are four originals in all, another change from the previous CD (which was all covers). Horton contributes a swingin' update of Brown's "If You Can't Get Five Take Two" called "You Can't Take It With You" complete with twin fiddles. The originals are standouts in a set of great tunes that include two Bob Wills numbers, one by Venuti and Lang, and several standard fiddle tunes.

Most of all, the Hot Club appear to be having a blast with all of the material, a hallmark of any good Western swing band (complete with the occasional Bob Wills-like "Ahh-haa" calls). After all, this music is for dancing, so it'd better be fun.