The Hot Sardines, those coolly stylish New York frontrunners of the current fedoras-and-flappers early-jazz boom, are touring their second album, French Fries & Champagne. The title nails this likable outfit’s agenda – 21st-century disposability and golden-age opulence merged.
Compared to their unselfconsciously vivacious Barbican show last year, they sounded a little overawed in the hallowed jazz environs of Ronnie Scott’s, but their Broadway classics, early blues and good-time swing still make a surefire mix, spiced now with wider-remit variations such as British soul star Robert Palmer’s 1985 hit Addicted to Love.
Singer and frontwoman Elizabeth Bougerol quietly opened on the 1930s hit Them There Eyes, and elegantly unfurled Comes Love in both French and English after a piano intro from Evan “Bibs” Palazzo that eased from chaste baroque elegance into a stomping stride groove. Addicted to Love, powered by a tight soul-horns riff and with Bougerol driving the accents harder, was a highlight (the singer laughing delightedly at a front-row fan’s collusion in the chorus), Sophie Tucker’s Some of These Days was given a Cuban bounce, Mike Sailors imparted a deliciously melancholy trumpet shimmer to his feature on Talk of the Town (the better of the show’s two instrumentals), and a turbo-charged Running Wild bustled around Francisco’s percussive footwork and a pithy trumpet break from Jason Prover.
It was an occasionally introverted gig by Sardines standards, but their special spin on retro-jazz delighted a full house of fans.
- At the New theatre, Cardiff, 9 June. Box office: 029-2087 8889.
