The Brackendale Art Gallery’s stage will be dressed up for Halloween as 1930s Paris this Saturday, as Deanna Knight and the Hot Club of Mars bring their gypsy jazz to town.
While the band mines the vein of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli for much of its sound, Knight emphasizes that they often incorporate other styles such as Hawaiian folk, Argentinean tangos or Brazilian bossa novas.
“We’re not just strictly gypsy jazz,” she told The Squamish Chief in a phone interview.
The band is comprised of Knight on vocals, Michael Dunn, Don Kellett and Steve “Bugsy” Szabo on guitars, Mark Dowding on saxophone, Tom Neville on violin, while Joe Bourchier now holds things down on bass, replacing longtime bassist Charlie Knowles. As is typical with gypsy jazz, the band does not rely on a drummer for rhythm but simply the guitars and bass.
The group had been around before Knight joined about 15 years ago.
Dunn, a guitarist and luthier, was responsible for getting it going and bringing the Django-esque sounds to the West Coast’s jazz community. As a luthier, he has also made many connections through the guitars he had made for people.
“Michael had basically brought gypsy jazz to Vancouver,” Knight says.
“He’s a pillar in that particular community and genre.”
Dunn and the BAG’s Thor Froslev go back a long time, and the musicians have been coming to town for years to perform.
Knight, herself, started in music at age five. She went on to study voice and musical theory. Later, she performed in musical theatre productions, was a lead singer in a 60-piece girls’ choir and even started an event-decorating and singing-telegram service called Balloon-a-Toons, which she ran for 13 years. She recorded albums as a solo artist and was singing with a 17-piece big band prior to joining the Hot Club of Mars.
After putting her solo projects on hold, Knight is working on her own material again, which incorporates piano and cello into more of a folk-jazz sound. While she had a broad musical background before joining the Hot Club of Mars, since 2002 she has mostly been performing the band’s material. She also has other projects such as occasional cabaret-styled events throughout the year that can push the envelope with influences such as burlesque.
The group does change the material depending on the venue in which it is playing and the type of show.
“If it’s strictly a dance, we’ll create the repertoire around people dancing,” Knight says.
In Squamish, they plan on more of a concert repertoire than a purely swinging affair, but Knight adds that anyone is welcome to dance at the shows.
She says the energetic swing dancers these days definitely add to the entertainment.
“It keeps us on our toes,” she says. “We love when people dance... It’s that extreme element of entertainment.”
With Halloween approaching, people are also encouraged to come dressed in costume for this event.
The show is Oct. 29 at 8 p.m. Tickets are available at the BAG or Xoco. For more information, see www.deannaknight.ca.
