Holiday Stomp With The Hot Sardines

Fueled by the belief that classic Jazz feeds the heart and soul, the Hot Sardines are on a mission to make old sounds new again and prove that joyful music can bring people together in a disconnected world. Praised by The Times London as “simply phenomenal,” The Hot Sardines’ brassy horn arrangements, rollicking piano melodies, and nostalgic vocals will transport viewers to a different Jazz era.

About the Hot Sardines

In the last two years, the Hot Sardines have been featured at the Newport Jazz Festival and the Montreal Jazz Festival, have sold out venues in New York City from Joe’s Pub to Bowery Ballroom and more than 150 tour dates from Chicago to London. They released two albums on Universal Music Classics to critical reviews and a #1 slot on the iTunes Jazz chart in the U.S. and internationally.

The Hot Sardines bring classic Jazz standards with their own brassy horn arrangements, rollicking piano melodies, and vocals from a chanteuse who transports listeners to a different era with the mere lilt of her voice. On French Fries & Champagne, The Hot Sardines’ new album for Universal Music Classics, the Jazz collective broadens its already impressive palette, combining covers and originals as they effortlessly channel New York speakeasies, Parisian cabarets, and New Orleans Jazz halls.

Bandleader Evan Palazzo and lead singer Elizabeth Bougerol met in 2007 after they both answered a Craigslist ad about a Jazz jam session above a Manhattan noodle shop. The unlikely pair—she was a London School of Economics-educated travel writer who grew up in France, Canada and the Ivory Coast, he was a New York City born and raised actor who studied theater at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia—bonded over their love for Fats Waller. Influenced also by such greats as Dinah Washington, Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday, they began playing open mic nights and small gigs and by 2011, they headlined Midsummer Night Swing at New York’s Lincoln Center.

In New York City, the Hot Sardines draw a young audience. In the rest of the country, multi-generations come to enjoy the music. “We’ll see daughters, mothers and grandmothers coming to our show together,” Evan says. “In Long Island, a young girl came up to Elizabeth with a can of sardines to sign. She was 7!” In the hot jazz movement, The Hot Sardines stand apart for the innovation, verve and sheer joy they bring to music, both new and old. “It’s a really cool time to be making music,” Elizabeth says. “Especially if you’re making music that started its life 100 years ago.