Harmonious Wail and Haute Dawg (formerly Back Porch Swing) bring their global string thing back for an encore performance.
By: Susan Van Dongen
It was one of those summer weekends when you might have actually thought about building an ark. The skies opened up and drenched the entire area, but seemed to single out the pavilion at Nassau Park in West Windsor where an outdoor concert was taking place.
Global String Thing promised to be a multi-cultural afternoon of music, and things were going quite well until monsoon season suddenly arrived. The highlight of the afternoon was to be internationally renowned gypsy swing group Harmonious Wail, but the rain pushed them and about 50 diehard music fans inside Panera Bread. The show went on, but unplugged.
Princeton-based musicians Jeff Nathanson and Dave Haneman from Haute Dawg (formerly Back Porch Swing) were particularly disappointed, but vowed to bring Harmonious Wail back to Central New Jersey so they could really show their stuff. "The Wail" will return to the area Feb. 23, when the foursome performs at the Arts Council of Princeton’s conTEMPORARY Arts Center. The recently re-named Haute Dawg will open the show.
As a bonus, the members of Harmonious Wail will be conducting a special 90-minute master class on gypsy swing and world music the afternoon before the performance. Musicians desiring to learn more about the history and techniques of gypsy swing à la Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli will find the members of Harmonious Wail informative and entertaining.
Harmonious Wail offers up a melange of mandolin, guitar, double bass and sultry vocals in styles ranging from jazz-folk to swing and bossa nova. But it’s best known for its ebullient gypsy swing, drawing from the influence of European gypsy musicians, mostly Reinhardt and violinist Grappelli. Wail founder and leader Sims Delaney-Potthoff first conceived of the band’s gypsy-jazz style almost 18 years ago, at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
"You can’t do a show without a sound system, but they pulled it off," says Mr. Haneman, who plays double bass for Haute Dawg. "They were cool about it. But this is a way for the people who were there in July to see them in a better environment."
"We felt that Harmonious Wail didn’t get the kind of performance situation that they deserved," says Mr. Nathanson, a guitarist for Haute Dawg as well as executive director of the Arts Council of Princeton. "We thought, let’s do something more formal, with a sound system and a weather-controlled environment, bring them back and put the group in the right context. Harmonious Wail was revisiting the East Coast on the way from Philadelphia to New York and they had a spot open on the 23rd, so we talked to them and they agreed to come back."
Both men are also excited about the master class.
"It starts out with the whole band, but then each member will break out to do a class for individual musicians," Mr. Haneman says. "They’ll go over performance techniques, band dynamics and whatnot. This is for voice, mandolin, guitar and bass."
As for Haute Dawg, after some 25 years, the music continues to swing, but the players are taking it in a different direction, which includes originals. The new name is an homage to "dawg" music, a style (and title) coined by mandolinist David Grisman, which blends jazz, classical and bluegrass.
"Our group had been pondering the name change for a while," Mr. Nathanson says. "We’ve been writing more original material, which draws from contemporary resources."
"As ‘Back Porch Swing’ people always thought we would do swing, but we do a whole lot more swing is just a small part of it," Mr. Haneman says. "So we thought it was time for a new name to go with our new direction."
"We have a tendency to lean toward a little bit of wordplay, so there’s the interplay of the instruments as well as the words," Mr. Nathanson adds.
Mr. Haneman, mandolinist Larry Frazer and percussionist Dennis Normile have been playing together for more than 25 years. Mr. Nathanson, a veteran studio musician, began to sit in a few years ago. The group is rounded out by vocalist Sharyn Alice Murray.
The "haute" in Haute Dawg gives a nod to the two award-winning chefs in the group Mr. Frazer, who is the executive catering chef for Princeton University, and Mr. Normile, director for the Cap and Gown Club.
"We’d just like to say that (Dave and I) aren’t good chefs but we eat very well," Mr. Nathanson says with a chuckle.
Haute Dawg (formerly Back Porch Swing) and Harmonious Wail will perform at
the conTEMPORARY Arts Center, Princeton Shopping Center, 301 N. Harrison St.,
Princeton, Feb. 23, 8 p.m. Tickets cost $12, $10 for members of the Arts Council
of Princeton. Master class with Harmonious Wail, Feb. 23, 5 p.m. Fee: $55, $45
for ACP members (includes concert admission). For information, call (609) 924-8777.
On the Web: www.artscouncilofprinceton.org.
Harmonious Wail on the Web: www.wail.com