Seemingly generated by artificial intelligence, the album art for Dream Dancing, Hot Club KC’s debut album, is buoyant. Yet the attractive image is a misleading representation of the Kansas City band’s variation on gypsy jazz. Asking a bot to generate a confluence of mellow late-’60s psychedelia and a pretty Parisian boulevard may have produced a more appropriate visual match for the music.
Hot Club KC is as indebted to the Grateful Dawg stylings of David Grisman and Jerry Garcia as it is to the gypsy jazz progenitors Stéphane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt. Slightly wavy interpretations of familiar melodies such as “Gee Baby Ain’t I Good to You,” “With a Little Help From My Friends” and “Lil Darlin’” swirl around bandleader Adam Galblum’s endearingly frail voice.
Everyone who has been charmed by a Hot Club KC performance already knows they’ll want to spend time with Dream Dancing. And outsiders attuned to gypsy jazz need to hear the original song “Renji.” The album opener is an ingratiating companion to the 1937 classic “Minor Swing.” Grappelli and Reinhardt-inspired bands around the world won’t need artificial intelligence to recognize that “Renji” would be an excellent addition to their repertoires.