Gypsy jazz revivalists Hot Club of San Francisco bring "Cinema Vivant" to Montana stages.
Award-winning, gypsy jazz ensemble Hot Club of San Francisco brings their unique show “Cinema Vivant” to Montana. This live music event combines vintage silent films with lively gypsy swing music.
The Hot Club of San Francisco is America’s longest-running and most beloved gypsy jazz ensemble. The group is dedicated to preserving the music, memory and spirit of Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelli and the Hot Club de France.
The group is led by superb lead guitarist, Paul Mehling, a silver-haired showman who launched Hot Club of SanFrancisco in 1991, spearheading the American Gypsy jazz movement with countless concerts and a series of critically hailed albums. The band also features the amazing violin of Grammy® Award-winning Evan Price, the velvet vocals of Isabelle Fontaine, and a swinging rhythm section with guitarist Jordan Samuels and bassist Sam Rocha. With frequent national and international tours—from Iceland to Lincoln Center and the Monterey Jazz Festival—the Hot Club of San Francisco is hailed as “one of the most cohesive and entertaining gypsy swing bands in the United States” by the San Francisco Chronicle.
“Cinema Vivant” is a celebration of imagination and innovation. Imagine yourself in the idyllic French countryside in the 1930s. Sometime before dark, a gypsy caravan sets up camp in a field outside of town, luring the locals out for an evening’s fun. The wanderers travel with a film projector, pointing it at the side of a barn.
Hot Club of San Francisco revives these gypsy caravans of the past and brings life to some of the earliest stop-action animated films that still exist. As images flicker to life, Hot Club musicians play their blend of Spanish guitar, jazz and bluegrass rhythms, and fast swing, matching every movement on the screen with characteristic virtuosity, passion, and humor. The result is a special evening of music and film that Acoustic Guitar calls “intricate, scorching and often brilliant”.
Two early 1900s stop-action films by Russian filmmaker Ladislaw Starewicz, who is often credited with inventing stop-motion animation, are featured. “The Cameraman’s Revenge” from 1912, uses stop-action shots of bugs to play out a tale of a husband and wife catching each other in romantic wrongdoings.
“The Mascot”, from 1934, is a tour de force of surrealism as a child’s stuffed dog comes to life and interacts with a real cast of characters.
The third film, “There It Is”, was written and directed in 1928 by Charley Bowers, one of cinema’s earliest geniuses. “There It Is” combines surrealism and slapstick in the tale of a stereotypical Scottish detective (played by Bowers) attempting to solve the mystery of the “Fuzz-Faced Phantom”.
The Hot Club of San Francisco brings “Cinema Vivant” to Montana stages in Whitefish, Oct. 5, Bozeman, Oct. 6, and Helena, Oct. 7.
Learn more at www.hotclubsf.com.