Hot jazz meets Texas swing

After years of crisscrossing the USA in a Ford van, opening stadium shows for Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson and as the first American band shows in Azerbaijan, the Hot Club of Cowtown must be the hardest working swing band in the music business.

Or is that the hardest-swinging band?

The Austin-based trio adds Sonoma to its list with a Thursday, May 12, 8 p.m. show at the Sonoma Community Center.

Remaining willfully out of the musical mainstream, Hot Club of Cowtown have created a following for their unique sound inspired by their namesakes: “Hot Club” from the hot jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli’s Hot Club of France, and “Cowtown” from the Western swing influence of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.

For guitarist Whit Smith, fiddler Elana James and bassist Jake Erwin, it’s all about staying true to music, keeping it sincere, free of irony, and focused on a simpler time.

Though Wills’ pre-WWII recordings have always been the fundamental inspiration for Hot Club of Cowtown’s repertoire and style, it has taken the band a dozen years to fully honor the King of Western Swing. A tour in England in the spring of 2010 led them to London’s Specific Sound studio, where they spent two days recording a 14-song marathon of Bob Wills tunes. The result, “What Makes Bob Holler,” respects the legendary music while putting Hot Club’s own signature on each song.
“We have been meaning to make this album for a long time,” James said.

While “What Makes Bob Holler” focuses exclusively on Bob Wills music, the band’s live show remains an engaging, eclectic, spur-of-the-moment mix. Smith describes their shows as “like a rock ’n’ roll show . . . people pick up on the energy and the sincerity.”
The result is an experience and sound James has said can’t easily be characterized. “I don’t think we’ve ever been in the box, we’ve never been out of it, we just do what we like.”

Tickets are $20, including drinks, at sneakerjones.com.