Hot Club Arkansas to perform at Faulkner County Library

CONWAY — The Faulkner County Library will debut the band Hot Club Arkansas at 7 p.m. Thursday.

Hot Club Arkansas is an acoustic swing band that draws its main influence from the European jazz styling of Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt, who, along with violinist Stephane Grappelli, developed a unique jazz sound centered around string instruments - acoustic guitar, violin and upright bass.

The group’s Hot Club Quintet recorded and toured extensively in France and across Europe during the 1930s, until the outbreak of World War II.

This style of jazz is known interchangeably as Gypsy jazz, Gypsy swing or Hot Club music, its repertoire consisting of early jazz and swing standards, as well as melodies developed by Reinhardt and Grappelli themselves.

The local band was started by Bill Nesbitt, an acoustic instrumentalist, graphic designer and music teacher, in central Little Rock. He plays mandolin and sings vocal harmonies with the Josh Love Band, an Arkansas-based bluegrass band. But he said he has been fascinated with the Django style of guitar for several years and could not pass up a chance to try to develop a Hot Club band when the opportunity presented itself.

Also well known in Arkansas bluegrass circles are the Clark Brothers - Harry and his older brother Jed. They have won many accolades and awards individually, as a duet and as co-leaders of the Clark Brothers Band. Harry contributes his improvisational style of mandolin to the HCA mix, a bit of a departure for Hot Club music, which traditionally uses violin or clarinet to solo opposite the guitar. Harry’s expertise on bluegrass mandolin is famous around Arkansas, and he puts it to good use with Hot Club Arkansas.

Jed is a championship-level bluegrass flat-pick guitarist, but he jumped at the chance to play Gypsy swing, even agreeing to set aside his guitar in favor of upright bass for this band.

Bob Baldridge is the only member of the band currently pursuing music as an academic field of study. He is a music student at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and is part of the UALR guitar program run by master guitarist and instructor Michael Carenbauer.

This concert is free and open to the public.

For more information, call the Faulkner County Library at (501) 327-7482 or e-mail jeanetta@fcl.org.

River Valley Ozark, Pages 139 on 02/28/2010

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