About HCOD

The Hot Club of Detroit plays traditional jazz from the 20's, 30's, and 40's with a European Gypsy twist. HCOD's music is inspired by the great European gypsy guitarist, Django Rienhardt. His group mixed French musette styles, the American jazz repertoire with the exciting rhythms of his Gypsy roots.

Although he claims to have no Gypsy blood in him, Hot Club founder Evan Perri spent nearly six years roaming the campuses of five different colleges in search of the right music program. He studied jazz at Berkelee College of Music, Musictech College in Minneapolis, and Western Michigan before settling in at Wayne State University in Detroit. He is the son of a jazz guitarist, but Evan did not pick up a guitar until age 16 and never heard a Django Reinhardt recording until his twenties. However, while still a fan of greats like Joe Pass, Pat Martino, Wes Montgomery and Kenny Burrell, he vividly remembers hearing Django for the first time and thinking, "This is it. This is what I've been looking for." The HCOD was born out of his desire to recreate the sound he describes as "Parisian Café 1936, but with better sound equipment" in Detroit. A dedicated student of Reinhardt and the gypsy guitar tradition, Evan plays on a "Jimmy Rosenberg" model guitar made by Dell Arte.

Dave Bennett, of Waterford Michigan, began on clarinet at age 10 and taught himself how to play Goodman songs by ear, listening to records given to him by his grandfather. At age 12 Dave was invited to the bandstand of the famous Sweet Basil jazz club in New York to sit in with trumpet legend Doc Cheatham. By age 14 Dave started touring all over America, twenty or thirty times a year, as a member of Saginaw's popular "New Reformation Dixieland Band." All the while he practiced six hours a day and kept studying the music of his greatest hero: Benny Goodman. A tape of his playing sent to Pete Fountain resulted in an un-prompted telephone call to Dave by Pete, encouraging this remarkable young talent that he was "on the right track".

Neil Mattson plays rhythm guitar for the HCOD. Although occasionally you'll here Neil take a solo, he's more than content to take his seat in the rhythm section, locking down the time with the group's bassist Shannon Wade. Neil is an accomplished jazz guitarist, composer, arranger, and teacher. Neil was born in Lansing. He grew up playing piano and trumpet and by the age of 13 started playing blues and rock on the guitar. The last ten or so years of Neil's life have been devoted to the serious study of classical and jazz guitar, including the last 5 years which Neil spent getting his bachelor's degree in Jazz Studies at Wayne State University. Neil is responsible for numerous transcriptions and is the group's copyist. Neil plays a '48 Epiphone Triumph, a true swing era guitar with a real loud bark.

Shannon Wade, double bassist, graduated from Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music in 1998 with a degree in composition and bass performance. After studying orchestra and jazz bass with Peter Dominguez, Rodney Whitaker, Dan Pliskow, Edgar Meyer and Richard Davis, he began performing with the Greater Lansing Symphony Orchestra, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, as well as with Marcus Belgrave, The Creole Kitchen, Delfeayo Marsalis, Matt Combs, Gene Wooten, Chris Jones, Vince Gill, Craig Havighurst and many others.