Mack Avenue
2008
Night Town
About This Album
On Night Town, the Hot Club of Detroit's sophomore effort for Mack Avenue Records, there is a sound that offers pure delight for jazz lovers and, by the same token, one of dread for the Gypsy jazz purist. That sound begins at the two-second mark of the opening cut on this excellent set. The tune is the old standard "I Want to Be Happy," and this version of it was inspired not by Django Reinhardt, but by a recording of Stan Getz playing with the Oscar Peterson Trio. It is the sound of a tenor saxophone (played by Carl Cafagna) evoking a momentary post-bop line and moving in a very straight path from here to there, accompanied by Julien Labro's button accordion, Shannon Wade's upright bass, and the guitars of Evan Perri and Paul Brady. The tune moves in short order from fleeting post-bop into the center of the action where it becomes a breezy, tough, but celebratory hybrid of Gypsy swing, French chanson, and bop. It is a startling, even breathless, even heady way to open an album, but through 15 tracks, despite the mood changes, tempo shifts, dynamic ranges, and advanced harmonic palette, the Hot Club of Detroit never let up. Of course, this Hot Club is not now, nor has it ever been, a purist group.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 and 11)

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