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Review: Cleveland Orchestra Fridays@7 with Lang Lang and Hot…

  • October 20, 2014June 24, 2015
  • by julien

by Carlyn Kessler

On Friday, October 10, The Cleveland Orchestra presented its first Fridays@7 concert of the 2014-15 season. Creating a more informal concertgoing experience, these concerts feature an earlier start time and shorter duration bookended by pre- and post-concert non-classical music, organized by world percussion luminary Jamey Haddad.

The Fridays@7 series embodies these recent developments and is undoubtedly a measure of their success. “The Fridays@7 concerts target a younger, more hip audience and are played without intermission,” wrote TCO associate principal cello Richard Weiss in an email.

The pre-concert “starter” begins at 6:00 pm in Reinberger Chamber Hall. The October 10 show highlighted Haddad along with accordion virtuoso Julien Labro and harmonica legend Howard Levy performing together in a unique musical collaboration. Read the full review here

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Review: San Jose Jazz Festival delivers serious fun

  • August 11, 2014October 14, 2014
  • by julien

By David Becker

Many other jazz festivals seem to encourage the musicians to act like brain surgeons, egging on their artistic sensibilities and treating the work as high art. Not the San Jose Jazz Festival, which just wound up its 25th annual blowout.

Hot Club of Detroit: At least something in the Motor City still works! One of the least doctrinaire of the many Django Reinhardt tribute bands circling the globe, this quartet takes a more pan-European approach to its mostly original songs, not least because the usual violin spot has been replaced by accordionist Julien Labro, who turned out to be the star of the show. Lead guitarist Paul Brady was no slouch, picking out evocative and incredibly nimble leads. But Labro’s solo turns were truly heroic. And when was the last time the words “jaw-dropping accordion solo” passed anyone’s lips at jazz show? Read the full review here

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Review: The Hot Club of Detroit @ the Van…

  • February 10, 2013September 24, 2013
  • by julien

Review by J Hunter
Photographs by Rudy Lu

Some music just needs to be seen in a small space. For instance, even though Troy Savings Bank Music Hall was acoustically perfect for Hot Club of San Francisco, both the band and the music seemed “too small for the room” during their appearance last year. In comparison, Hot Club of Detroit’s show at the Van Dyck Restaurant & Lounge last Friday night (February 1) was not just perfectly wonderful – it was also perfectly scaled. Maybe the Van Dyck’s concert space is a loft instead of a basement, and it may also be a non-smoking environment, but a band and its sound has never seemed more at home.

Here is the full review

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Who would have expected the accordion to sound so…

  • November 12, 2012November 12, 2012
  • by julien

Here is a review from our concert in Winnipeg with Hot Club of Detroit, Chris Smith from the Winnipeg Free Press had some really nice comments.

The Hot Club of Detroit is a tight, tight band that swings like crazy through its brand of Gypsy jazz paying tribute to the great guitarist Django Reinhardt. The five-piece band — rhythm and lead guitars, bass, accordion and tenor sax — was augmented by the great Brooklyn-based French singer Cyrille Aimée in its shows as part of the Izzy Asper Jazz Performances series.

From the get-go, lead guitarist Evan Perri and rhythm guitarist Paul Brady were locked into a groove that drove the band through two great sets Saturday afternoon, the first of two concerts that day. That familiar driving force that marked Reinhardt’s style was both a vehicle unto itself and the basis for an afternoon and great ensemble and solo work along with bassist Shawn Conley, accordion player Julien Labro and saxophonist Jon Irabagon.

…Labro plays the chromatic accordion with the style and verve of a rock musician…Read the full review here

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