As part of the Hot Spot Music "Giants of Gypsy Jazz" special event, please welcome 30-year veteran Madison-based swing ensemble, Harmonious Wail, touring with the internationally-renown Robin Nolan Trio. Tickets now on sale for general admission and premium seating (front section seats, pre-show "meet the artists" reception and free pass to the Midwest Gypsy Swing Fest in Madison, WI).
About Harmonious Wail:
Smoldering vocals laced among the jazzy mandolin and guitar; an infectious blend of continental jazz, swing, gypsy music and melodic vocals …how DOES one describe the sound of Harmonious Wail? The Wail has caught numerous listeners by total surprise during its more than 20-year history. Of all the venues and stages that these ‘NPR regulars’ have graced, it’s the PAC’s, festivals and showcase clubs that bring the most enthusiastic audience response.
About the Robin Nolan Trio
One of the world’s most respected exponents of Gypsy Jazz guitar since Django Reinhardt, Englishman Robin Nolan’s story began in an evacuation hospital in Vietnam in 1968. The son of musical entertainers, Nolan’s nomadic lifestyle has taken him on a romantic and passionate musical journey that’s rarely travelled in these fast-moving, fame-obsessed times. You might even call it a modern-day fairy tale.
Spending his formative years in Hong Kong, Nolan’s Liverpudlian father started to teach him to play the guitar at the age of six, unselfishly hoping his son’s talent would go on to shine even brighter than his own.
Nolan was encouraged and taught to play the standards of Hank Williams and the subtleties of traditional jazz. However, like many journeymen before him, Nolan’s musical path led him down many roads before securing a place at the Guildhall School of Music in London where he established himself on the capital’s local jazz scene with his own swing quartet. But it was a trip to the annual Django Reinhardt Festival in Samois-Sur-Seine, France with his father and musical mentor in 1991 that changed Nolan’s whole perspective towards music forever.