Swingin' Stampede: The Hot Club Of Cowtown Playing Hot Jazz & Western Swing

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
As their name implies, this Austin-based trio combines buoyant, blithe Western swing with precise small-band hot jazz. Before all you swingsters grab your dancin' shoes, however, be aware that this Hot Club takes its jazz improvisation quite seriously, delivering thoughtful and fluent licks rather than merely stock 4/4 rhythms. That's not to say you can't dance to it---they generate considerable intensity even without the presence of a drummer. Along the way, they cover an ample amount of Bob Wills (plus a Spade Cooley tune) in addition to traditional fiddle tunes, waltzes, and standards from Gershwin and other old-timers. Guitarist Whit Smith shows talent both as a fleet soloist and a propulsive rhythm man (check out Chinatown, My Chinatown) while Elana Fremerman handles her fiddle breaks with conviction; both offer mild-mannered vocals. Texas fiddle legend Johnny Gimble joins in on four cuts, and steel guitar, piano, and accordion also pop up at various points across this engaging debut. --Marc Greilsamer

Swingin' Stampede: The Hot Club Of Cowtown Playing Hot Jazz & Western Swing,Hot Club of Cowtown,Hightone Records,Pop,Popular Music,Retro Swing,Rock,Rock/Pop
Swingin' Stampede: The Hot Club Of Cowtown Playing Hot Jazz & Western Swing
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • if you like western swing
  • Hot Club SWINGS in Tulsa
  • Swinging Stampede
  • Direct from Bob Wills' Tiffany Transcriptions Great Great!!!
  • Great - but Tall Tails is the best one
Swingin' Stampede: The Hot Club Of Cowtown Playing Hot Jazz & Western Swing
Hot Club of Cowtown
Manufacturer: Hightone Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

GeneralGeneral | Country | Styles | Music
Western SwingWestern Swing | Country | Styles | Music
Swing GeneralSwing General | Swing Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music
Retro SwingRetro Swing | Swing Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Rock | Styles | Music
Pop RockPop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music
Similar Items:
  1. Continental Stomp
  2. Tall Tales
  3. Dev'lish Mary
  4. Ghost Train
  5. The Texas Fiddle Collection

ASIN: B00000AFXH
Release Date: 1998-09-01

Tracks:

  1. I Had Someone Else
  2. Silver Dew On The Blue Grass Tonight
  3. Somebody Loves Me
  4. My Confession
  5. Snowflake Reel
  6. End Of The Line
  7. T And J Waltz
  8. Sweet Jenny Lee
  9. Mission to Moscow
  10. You Can't Break My Heart
  11. Red Bird
  12. Chinatown, My Chinatown
  13. Just Friends
  14. Ida Red

Amazon.com

As their name implies, this Austin-based trio combines buoyant, blithe Western swing with precise small-band hot jazz. Before all you swingsters grab your dancin' shoes, however, be aware that this Hot Club takes its jazz improvisation quite seriously, delivering thoughtful and fluent licks rather than merely stock 4/4 rhythms. That's not to say you can't dance to it---they generate considerable intensity even without the presence of a drummer. Along the way, they cover an ample amount of Bob Wills (plus a Spade Cooley tune) in addition to traditional fiddle tunes, waltzes, and standards from Gershwin and other old-timers. Guitarist Whit Smith shows talent both as a fleet soloist and a propulsive rhythm man (check out Chinatown, My Chinatown) while Elana Fremerman handles her fiddle breaks with conviction; both offer mild-mannered vocals. Texas fiddle legend Johnny Gimble joins in on four cuts, and steel guitar, piano, and accordion also pop up at various points across this engaging debut. --Marc Greilsamer

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars if you like western swing.......2006-07-11

then you will like this CD from the Hot club Of Cowtown. This is a fun album, they really know how to swing. No way you won't like this CD.

5 out of 5 stars Hot Club SWINGS in Tulsa.......2006-07-06

My husband and I just saw HOT CLUB perform last night at the 4th of July Festivities in Tulsa. I have to be honest and say I had never heard of them before but they have me looking to buy all their music now. I am a fan of the Bag Boys out of Boston and this Group made me think of them and how much I like that Western Swing. I am a listener of Soft Rock and Oldies but when I hear a great group like this my tastes change easily.

Elana is full of energy and fun to watch. She introduced a couple songs she wrote last night and she should be a STAR of the highest rank. We had a great time and will be watching this Group from now on.
Wendy Rose Alvarez in Broken Arrow, OK

5 out of 5 stars Swinging Stampede.......2006-02-21

I would describe it as excellent- a good composite of Jazz style and C & Western, some of the tunes reminded me of bush dancing we use to attend. Of Elana Fremerman, her fiddle playing is wow.
I first saw her on the DVD This Joint Is Jumping in an interview about Billie Holliday, thats when I realised that she has an incredible likeness to my daughter Melanie. That set my curiousity to find out more, did so via Google. Then decided to purchase one of her CDs. To find out what her music and playing was like, needlessly to say-definetley A1.
Kindest Regards
Peter J Barr

5 out of 5 stars Direct from Bob Wills' Tiffany Transcriptions Great Great!!!.......2004-01-28

The Hot Club of Cow Town is a great band. Particularly on the initial records, we are seeing straight up Bob Wills music. The sound and most of the selections come from Bob Willis's great Tiffany Transcriptions of the mid 1940s. The Tiffany transcriptions were records made to be played on radio stations (back when radio stations usually did not play regular retail sold records). They were hotter, looser, and with a fuller repertoire than the recordings they were making for Columbia during these years.

The Hot Club picks up this music so well, and in such a lively spirit without being directly imitative that on some selections here I expect to hear Bob Wills, Joe Holley, or Tommy Duncan singing.

Their musical achievement is to do this with a trio. They all were veterans of large real sized Western Swing aggregations in NYC and California and Texas. They were true to life Western Swing bands, but there aren't a lot of venues that are going to pay enough money for a 7, 8. or 9 piece bands to support its members, a factor that helped Rock and Roll get rid of lots of Western Swing, Big Band swing, and R & B groups in the 1950s, a trio or foursome is just cheaper to hire than a mini orchestra.

Being an inspiring wannabe baby steps fiddler, I really in love with Elena's work on all the albums. She takes a lot of her lead from the great Joe Holley's solos and obligatos with Wills in the 40s and when he rejoined the Playboys in the early 1960s. However, Elena gets a bigger richer more musically fluent sound. She stays hot, but puts a lot of bow into her fiddling and is the apparent star of this band.

However, the real greatness here is in the rhythm section. How do they do it? Just a guitarist and bassist. You'd swear there was the usual lineup in Western Swing with a rhythm guitarist playing behind the guitar leads, a drummer, and maybe a rhythm banjo player too and maybe people in a horn or fiddle section playing rhythm riffs when they aren't playing lead. Yet, it is just a bassist and a guitar player. Than rhythm is not merely good as what Wills had during his Tiffany recordings, it is much better. This almost reaches the quality of rhythm reached on the best Western Swing recording in history, the combined work of Eldon Shamblin, Smokey Dacus, and Tommy Allsup on "For the Last Time." That's saying something.
There is a guest appearance of the steel guitar genius Jeremy Wakefield that dazzles.
It is simply about which Hot Club CDs to get. Buy them all! Maybe you might even get one or two extra!
Apart from all the cultural and historicity and analysis this is just sooooo damn good that deaf people would probably love to hear it!

4 out of 5 stars Great - but Tall Tails is the best one.......2003-08-14

Great group with consistantly nice music coming out. But Tall Tails is the best album for this group so far.

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  2. The Ahern Sessions: 1976-1977
  3. The Earth Rolls On
  4. The Hits
  5. The Ultimate Collection
  6. This Is...Brenda/Emotions
  7. This Time [Extra tracks]
  8. Turn the Tide
  9. Waitin on Sundown
  10. Wondrous Love

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Music Album