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Press Release
April 11, 2003
Trio Invokes the Ghost of Reinhart/WIlls
Hot Club of CowTown plays Monday Jazz at the Afterthought
April 21, 2003, 8pm, Tickets $10
The Monday Jazz Project at the Afterthought presents the country swing trio Hot Club of CowTown featuring fiddler/vocalist Elana Fremerman, Django Reinhardt inspired guitarist Whit Smith, and upright bassist Jake Erwin. The show will be at 8 pm April 21, 2003, tickets $10 available from the Afterthought 2721 Kavanaugh, Little Rock, 663-1196 or Capitol Keyboard 228-9999. The first half of the evening will be Non-smoking. Below is some information on the band members from their website www.hotclubofcowtown.com
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."
Elana's Gear
I play a 1962 Mittenwald violin. I use an L.R. Baggs transducer pick-up run straight into a late 1970s or early 1980s "Minibrute" Polytone amplifier with a Shure UT4 Gold Series wireless transmitter-receiver system. I use Dominant strings and have three bows on the road at all times - one fiberglass and two wood -- and I have to rehair at least two of them about every six weeks.
I always have the sound person mike my amplifier instead of running a D.I., and I don't use a pre-amp, since I found that, for me, it never made anything sound better.
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 tocall 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."
Whit's Gear
I play a 1925 Gibson L-5. It's a carved-top acoustic guitar, so I use an early 1940s DeArmond pick-up attached with Whit Smith brand office putty. This doesn't hurt the finish and deadens the top for fewer feedback problems. I also have a 1959 ES-345 and a Del Arte guitar with a French polish and a HUGE neck. It's like a bird house stuck on a log!
My amplifier is a 1938 Gibson EH-150, which generates approximately 15 watts of pure class-A tone!!! My strings are a hybrid set-up: the low E, A and D strings are GHS Vintage Bronze (no phosphorus!). The G string is 24-gauge nickel round-wound or flat-wound, and then up to an 18-gauge B string and up to a 14-gauge E string!! And I use Matt Umanov generic plastic heavy picks.
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."
Jake's Gear
I play a mid-1950s laminate Kay model M1-B blonde bass. I use either a Boss EQ or an MXR ten-band EQ pedal through a Gallien-Kruger 400 RB amplifier with a Hartke 2X10 speaker cabinet. I also prefer to mike the cabinet as opposed to going direct in order to preserve tonal integrity. I use an Underwood acoustic bass transducer pick-up with the treble side element left out of contact with the bridge to reduce phase cancellation and feedback and allow for a more natural, woody tone. For strings, I use a flat-wound-steel on gut string for the E and A, and plain gut strings on the D and G.
Upcoming Monday Jazz at the Afterthought dates;
Apr 28 - Monday Jazz Project Jam Session with House Trio featuring Gene Rush on piano, Joe Vick on bass, and Dave Rogers at the drums. Jam players signup starting at 7:45 pm in After thought Foyer, 8 PM, $5 cover, $1 Jammers.
May 5 - Rodney Block, trumpet, with Buck Powell-piano, Joe Vick-bass, and Dave Rogers-drums, 8 pm, $5 cover.
May 12 - Chuck Dodson Trio, with Chuck Dodson-piano, Joe Vick-bass, and Dave Rogers-drums, 8 pm, $5 cover.
May 19 - Monday Jazz Project Jam Session with House Trio. Jam players signup starting at 7:45 pm in After thought Foyer, 8 PM, $3 cover, $1 Jammers.
June 2 - Chris James (Gootherts), piano with Roy Murdock-bass and Dave Rogers-drums, 8 pm, $5 cover.
June 9 - John Wier, trumpet, with Buck Powell-piano, Joe Vick-bass, and Dave Rogers-drums, 8 pm, $5 cover.
June 16 - Bob Dorough, piano, with Joe Vick-bass and Dave Rogers-drums, 8 pm, Tickets $10.
June 23 - Steve Struthers Trio, with Steve Struthers-guitar, Joe Vick-bass, and Dave Rogers-drums, 8 pm, $5 cover.
June 30 - Monday Jazz Project Jam Session with House Trio. Jam players signup starting at 7:45 pm in After thought Foyer, 8 PM, $5 cover, $1 Jammers.
July 7 - Herman Green, saxophone, with Buck Powell-piano, Joe Vick-bass, and Dave Rogers-drums, 8 pm, $5 cover.
July 14 - vocalist Miles Griffith, with Michael Jefry Stevens-piano, Joe Vick-bass, and Dave Rogers-drums, 8 pm, Tickets $10.
All dates at the Afterthought 2721 Kavanauagh, Little Rock. (501) 663-1196. The Arkansas Jazz Heritage Foundation and the Afterthought sponsor Monday Jazz Project. Seating is General Admission. For more information on the Monday Jazz Project contact Cecil Rich at (501) 228-9999.
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