Gig review: Hot Club of Cowtown - Tolbooth, Stirling

HEARTACHE has rarely sounded so breezily upbeat as in the hands of this scintillating Texas-based threesome, whose contemporary spin on classic Western swing attains a natural apotheosis on their latest album.

What Makes Bob Holler is an all-covers tribute to the genre’s chief progenitor Bob Wills – author of the deceptively catchy lovers’ plaints She’s Killing Me and I Can’t Go on This Way, which both featured in this comprehensively sparkling set.

Comprising Elana James on fiddle and Whit Smith on a 1925 Gibson guitar – both also sharing lead vocal duties – plus the astonishingly percussive slap-bass of Jake Erwin (also on backing vocals), the trio combined ultra-sharp individual and ensemble musicianship with winningly extrovert pizzazz. Their wider repertoire foregrounded the close connections between Western swing and gypsy jazz.

Highlights in the latter vein included an exquisitely dainty, technically dazzling rendition of the Grappelli/Reinhardt gem J’Attendrai, while a couple of James’s original instrumentals, Heart of Romain (with its deft classical allusions) and Eva’s Waltz, together with a delicately understated country/folk cover of Tom Waits’s The Long Way Home, further illustrated their versatility.

The variety continued with a sprinkling of vintage jazz standards, including I Can’t Give You Anything But Love and ’Deed I Do, which showcased James’s sensuously coquettish but wryly knowing vocals. There were also a few raucous stringband-style workouts, with a wealth of exhilarating solos from all three players simultaneously paying homage to Western swing’s authentic improvisational spirit and keeping the music very much in the moment.

RATING: *****