Date and Time
Sunday, February 16th, 2025
3:00 pm (Doors open at 2:30 pm)
About the Show
About the Band
The Hot Club Cheese Roll was founded by guitarist Jason Smith in the fall of 2016 with original members Jeff Angeley on guitar and Barry Gross on upright bass. The intention was to play pre-WWII jazz with the flavor of The Quintette of the Hot Club of France. That group was led by the legendary Django Reinhardt and Stephan Grappelli on guitar and violin. They were reinterpreting American jazz through European Sinti (Gypsy) culture. By the end of 2017, they were gigging regularly with a lineup consisting of Jason Smith (guitar), Barry Gross (upright bass), the amazing Mark Russell (violin), and Ken Hyatt (accordion). Eventually, the lineup would settle to Jason and Mark playing with a variety of top-notch local bass players, including Barry, Mike Janell, Mike Lavoie, and Bryan Rizzuto, among others. In the Spring of 2023, Jason hooked up with John Birt, who was also playing this style in his own band, The Paper Moon Jazz Band, in Providence. Later that year, Jason was introduced to Tanner McMullen through Jeff Angeley. He has performed with the HCCR only once, but proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was up to the challenge.
