Hot Club of Cowtown
8-4-2024
Award-winning Austin, Texas-based Hot Club of Cowtown may be the world’s most globe-trotting, effervescent string trio, who’s joyful sound blends the traditional Western swing of the 1940s American southwest with European hot jazz influences of the same era.
2024 marks three decades since guitarist Whit Smith and violinist Elana James met through a classified ad in the music section of New York City's legendary alternative newspaper, the Village Voice. A few years later Jake Irwin was added as Bass player and Hot Club of Cowtown was born. And thirty years on, they continue to surprise and delight with their trademark "arsenal full of technique and joy,” Jon Caramanica, New York Times.
They have perfected a truly unique and infectious hybrid that playfully blurs musical boundaries, conjuring the spirit of both Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys and jazz legend Django Reinhardt.
Hot Club have toured with Bob Dylan, (Elana has also recorded with him), opened several shows for Willie Nelson, toured with Nelson and Dylan during a summer-long stadium tour, and opened seven nights of Roxy Music’s sold-out “For Your Pleasure” U.K. stadium tour. In the U.K. they have been featured at the Glastonbury Festival and have been a returning guest on Later With Jools Holland, the Cambridge Folk Festival, and BBC Radio 2’s Radcliffe and Maconie and Bob Harris Country shows.
In 2015 they were winners of the Ameripolitan Music Awards: Hot Club for "Western Swing Group," and Elana James for "Western Swing Female."
“The interplay is as sleek as ever.” – The Times (London)
“The hot jazz is what Hot Club do best, and this is a staggering return to form for the band I once said I could listen to forever. That still stands.” – Country Music People
“As instrumentally and vocally tight as any band out there working in any genre today….three skilled musicians who can seemingly just tune up and play, something that’s becoming increasingly rare these days.” – American Songwriter
VIDEO
Award-winning Austin, Texas-based Hot Club of Cowtown may be the world’s most globe-trotting, effervescent string trio, who’s joyful sound blends the traditional Western swing of the 1940s American southwest with European hot jazz influences of the same era.
2024 marks three decades since guitarist Whit Smith and violinist Elana James met through a classified ad in the music section of New York City's legendary alternative newspaper, the Village Voice. A few years later Jake Irwin was added as Bass player and Hot Club of Cowtown was born. And thirty years on, they continue to surprise and delight with their trademark "arsenal full of technique and joy,” Jon Caramanica, New York Times.
They have perfected a truly unique and infectious hybrid that playfully blurs musical boundaries, conjuring the spirit of both Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys and jazz legend Django Reinhardt.
Hot Club have toured with Bob Dylan, (Elana has also recorded with him), opened several shows for Willie Nelson, toured with Nelson and Dylan during a summer-long stadium tour, and opened seven nights of Roxy Music’s sold-out “For Your Pleasure” U.K. stadium tour. In the U.K. they have been featured at the Glastonbury Festival and have been a returning guest on Later With Jools Holland, the Cambridge Folk Festival, and BBC Radio 2’s Radcliffe and Maconie and Bob Harris Country shows.
In 2015 they were winners of the Ameripolitan Music Awards: Hot Club for "Western Swing Group," and Elana James for "Western Swing Female."
“The interplay is as sleek as ever.” – The Times (London)
“The hot jazz is what Hot Club do best, and this is a staggering return to form for the band I once said I could listen to forever. That still stands.” – Country Music People
“As instrumentally and vocally tight as any band out there working in any genre today….three skilled musicians who can seemingly just tune up and play, something that’s becoming increasingly rare these days.” – American Songwriter
VIDEO