It's a time machine, and as the first notes jump out from the guitars and violin of the Hot Club of San Francisco, you will feel yourself instantly transported back to Paris in the 1930s. The joyous music here evokes the glitz and glamour of a bygone time int he City of Lights — les années folles of the Jazz Age, alive with Art Nouveau finery, backstreet Montparnasse cabarets, and crazed dancing through the night to the rollicking string jazz of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli's Quintette du Hot Club de France.
Dangerous indeed.
This plastic disc also marks an auspicious moment in time — the tenth CD released by the Hot Club of San Francicso. Bandleader Paul "Pazzo" Mehling was inspired to launch the ensemble thanks to two influences — an enduring fascination for Django's music, natch; but also the incisive and timely advice of a Santa Cruz pyschic, which in the world of Gypsy jazz seems equally natural. After five years playing guitar with Dan Hicks and the Acoustic Warriors, Paul decided to quit the music biz in 1991. Seeking career advice, he ventured to a psychic. "She told me many truths about myself," Paul remembers, "but then she said something very mysterious — that I should write music. After leaving Dan, I started the HCSF. Necessity is the mother of invention!"
Labels: 21, Hot Club of San Francisco HRx, Hot Club of San Francisco LP, reference recordings hrx, Reference Recordings LPs, The Hot Club of San Francisco, Yerba Buena Bounce