Fairway To Folk

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Mixing jazz standards and western swing,
Elana Fremerman and the Hot Club of Cowtown
join the lineup at the 23rd Ann Arbor Folk Festival.

C.

The Hot Club of Cowtown
plays tunes made famous
by Bob Wills, Django
Reinhardt and Louis
Armstrong. Says Elana
Fremerman, left, "'It's not
quite as common nowadays
to have a violin in a band
that does these tunes."

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SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to the Jewish News

Lana Fremerman
may trace her roots
to cartown, but she
really has blossomed
professionally in- cowtown.
The daughter of Ann Arbor
violinist Susan Friedman, who grew
up in Royal Oak, Fremerman plays
violin and sings with the Hot Club of
Cowtown, a touring western swing
trio based in Austin, Texas, and about
to begin work on its third CD.
Although the trio has found its
way into the swing trend that is
attracting large audiences across the
country, the instrumentalists have
brought a unique brand to the once-
again-popular style.
Fremerman, joined by Whit Smith
on guitar and vocals and Matt
Weiner on upright bass, will be fea-
tured at the 23rd Ann Arbor Folk

1/28
2000

Festival, which begins at 6 p.m.
Saturday, Jan. 29, at Hill
Auditorium. Weiner recently
replaced bassist Billy Horton, who is
on the first two recordings.
"We do Bob Wills' songs from the
'30s and '40s and hot jazzy tunes from
the American standards repertoire of
the same time," says Fremerman, 29.
Raised in Kansas City, she studied at
the Manhattan School of Music and
joined up with Smith six years ago
after meeting him in New York. "You
could call what we do vintage sounds
with a lot of energy," she says.
The enduring standard "Stardust,"

for instance, sounds fresh and a little
twangy when it's performed by the
Hot Club of Cowtown members,
who also give their special sound to
"After You've Gone," "I Can't Give
You Anything But Love," "Exactly
Like You," "Dinah" and countless
other pop classics.
Adding some fun to the mix are
the western/country numbers, such
as "I Laugh When I Think How I
Cried Over You," "I Had Someone
Else Before I Had You and I'll Have
Someone After You're Gone" and "I
Can't Tame Wild Women."
"It's not quite as common nowadays

to have a violin in a band that
does these tunes," explains
Fremerman, whose violin inter-
est started with the classics as
she heard her mother play for
the Kansas City Symphony.
"There came a time when
violins got replaced by horns
or wind instruments or
another guitar and fell out of
vogue. One thing that we bring is an
instrumentation that would have
been common in this area of the
country in the '30s.
"We all like to play together
because we bring the same kind of
approach," adds Fremerman. "We
play in a lively, animated way, and
we have so much fun. That's a salient
feature we bring."
Fremerman, who attended Jewish
day school and had a bat mitzvah, took
some detours before reaching her brand
of swing. She studied viola in India,
worked as a horse wrangler in Colorado

