Date/Time
Date(s) - 11/17/2016
8:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Location
Armando's
Category(ies)
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$15
Paul “Pazzo” Mehling — leader, guitar
Paul Mehling, the leader of HCSF, Le Jazz Hot, and the Ivory Club Boys, has been dubbed the godfather of American gypsy jazz. He discovered the music of Django Reinhardt and the Quintet of the Hot Club of France in grammar school, and decades later the music that took root in his young soul finally bore fruit.
“I was born in Denver and grew up in what is now Silicon Valley, when it was all fruit trees,” Mehling recalls. “My father was a record collector. I grew up with the music of Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and all the swing era bands. He’d come home and turn on the stereo and, at a year old, I’d sit in front of the speakers and soak up the music. To this day, I get a sense of déjà vu whenever I hear a song I heard back then. When I was older, I became a discipline problem because I wanted to stay up all night and listen to records. Being exposed to swing at an early age predisposed me to playing this kind of music.
Isabelle Fontaine — vocals, guitar
Isabelle Fontaine was born and raised in the French countryside with the voices of Edith Piaf, Charles Trenet, and Yves Montand ringing in her ears. She originally had no intention of becoming a professional musician but when she started singing with a group of friends for fun, her talent was immediately recognized and her life took an unexpected turn. She spent the next twenty years singing and playing the snare drum to the jumping jive music of the 50’s throughout France, with detours to Spain and over the Alps to Switzerland.
During this period, she developed an unconditional love for the Ladies and the Dukes of the Big Band Era and was eventually drawn to the gypsy swing of Django Reinhardt and The Hot Club of France. It wasn’t long before she picked up the guitar and applied her impeccable sense of rhythm to the stringed instrument.
Evan Price — violin
Evan Price is steadily becoming one of the most respected jazz violinists of his generation. A native of Detroit, MI, his musical background includes some earnest dues-paying in a variety of genres. As a young competitive fiddler he won his share of awards, having been named the U.S. Scottish Fiddling Champion, Canadian Junior Fiddle Champion, and Canadian Novelty Fiddling Champion. He also performed with some of the masters of fiddle lore—Stephane Grappelli, Johnny Frigo, Claude “Fiddler” Williams, Johnny Gimble, Buddy Spicher, and Vassar Clements—as well as a diverse array of pop icons from Stevie Wonder and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and Robert Plant to comedian, Steven Wright.
Evan’s college career included stints at both The Cleveland Institute of Music and at Berklee College of Music, and has himself served as a member of the music faculty at Wellesley College.
Jordan Samuels — guitar
Jordan Samuels is an accomplished guitarist who has been studying, performing and teaching throughout the San Francisco Bay Area for the last twenty years. While at San Francisco State University, he completed his formal training in music composition under the guidance of Ronald Caltabiano and Richard Festinger while simultaneously pursuing a jazz studies curriculum directed by Andrew Speight and John Calloway.
Since completing his studies in 2010, Samuels has become an in-demand jazz guitarist and can be seen performing regularly with the Hot Club of San Francisco, Erik Jekabson’s Electric Squeezbox Orchestra, and his own trio Certified Organic. He has also appeared with Doug Martin, Paula West, Wil Blades, Smith Dobson, Adam Theis, Matt Clark and Bobby Watson among many others.
Sam Rocha — bass
A Fresno, California native, Sam Rocha showed an interest in music from a very early age. Beginning with piano lessons at age 4, his formal musical studies soon expanded to include the viola and bass guitar. At age 15, he fell in love with the acoustic string bass and has since identified himself as a bassist, playing his first professional gigs at 17 with Fresno’s Blue Street Jazz Band, among others. While largely self-taught on the string bass, Sam has closely studied such masters of the instrument as “Pops” Foster, Al Morgan, Milt Hinton, Bob Haggart, Jimmy Blanton, Ray Brown, Walter Page, and Scott LaFaro. In addition to his in-depth study of classic bass playing, Sam has absorbed the nuances of classic jazz tuba, cornet, and guitar playing, and he regularly performs on those instruments as well. Quickly becoming one of the rising stars of the traditional jazz and gypsy swing circuit, Sam is known for his innate musicality and rhythm and for his inventive, melodic solos. While on tour, Sam plays a Chadwick Folding Bass with a hybrid set of gut and steel strings.