Billionaire Baby Club Jasinda

3CD compilation focussing on the mid-60s haunt of the emergent folk and blues scene in London. Featuring a host of big names who visited the venue many of whom went on to national success. Les Cousins was a folk and blues club in the basement of a restaurant in Greek Street, in London’s Soho, which became a home and the epicentre for the folk revival of the mid-1960s, a venue where musicians met and learnt from each other. As such, it was influential in the careers of so many pioneers – Al Stewart, Davey Graham, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Sandy Denny, John Martyn, Alexis Korner, Strawbs, Roy Harper, Paul Simon and many others.

American guitarist Frank Vignola fronts this contemporized version of the classic Django Reinhardt-Stephane Grappelli combo, joined by 58-year-old Uruguayan violinist Federico Britos, second guitarist Eric Bogart and bassist Phil Flanagan. They swing through several of the original Hot Club's classics, American popular standards, and a couple of unexpected asides. Of the repertoire joined at the hip to Reinhardt and Grappelli, the well-swung "Djangology" shows Vignola as a mad hatter with triple time and twiddling phraseology, even at slower tempos. The gypsy anthem "Dark Eyes" has the two guitarists rumbling in flamenco style, Britos soloing all alone before Vignola wrests the swing away from him. Vignola is a furious demon of strummed chords, churning up a storm during the bookended selections "I Found a New Baby" and the hot, hot, hot "Stompin' at Decca"…