The Hot Club of Saratoga closes the curtain on Jazz on Jay Thursday, just days after Music Haven presented its final concert this season: the Lost Bayou Ramblers, and Cecilia, last Sunday.

Music Haven presents its final film offering Friday: “Song Sung Blue.” But we digress

When the Hot Club of Saratoga plays gypsy jazz, they generate such engaging, fresh energy in this 1930s style that they’ve become one of our most honored jazz groups.

They won the Thomas Edison (Eddies) Music Award as Jazz Artist of the Year in 2022 and 2025 and played the main stage in SPAC’s 2021 and 2022 Saratoga Jazz Festivals.

The Hot Club of Saratoga. Photo provided. Credit: Kiki Vassilakis

The Hot Club of Saratoga is Tucker Callander, violin; Jonathan Greene, clarinet; Chuck Kish, guitar; Dylan Perrillo, upright bass and guest vocalist Julia Posin.

They formed in 2013 to play Hattie’s 75th anniversary party. Honoring this venerable Saratoga institution, they celebrated the lively music of guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli whose Quintet of the Hot Club of France famously invented gypsy jazz.

Perillo recalls that Reinhardt first inspired to make music. While he notes several band members studied mainly classical music in conservatories, Perillo says, “The majority of what we’ve learned in this style of music comes from what we call the folk method. Our peers are our teachers, and we learn…through playing together.”

Perillo says, “We approach playing this music with reverence for the original makers of it including Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli. But of course we mix in our individual musical experiences…to our sound.” He explains, “Jazz has so much depth and history, it would be impossible to play it without doing our due diligence about the fantastic musicians who came before us.”

“Improvisation is the name of the game!” exclaims Perillo. “Ninety percent of what we are performing is improvising over a mutually agreed-upon musical form; the rest is as the wind takes us.”

On Thursday, they’ll play music from the late 1920s to the 1950s, but in their own original arrangements. Perillo lists “Snowfall,” “Topsy,” “I’ll See You in my Dreams,” “Minor Swing” and “Honeysuckle Rose” as performance favorites.

The Hot Club of Saratoga has released three albums: “Swingin’ With the Hot Club of Saratoga (2015), “Just Horsin’ Around” (2023) and “Comes Love” (2025) featuring vocalist Julia Posin who guests with them today. They also play Sunday brunch at the Adelphi Hotel on Broadway in Saratoga Springs. 

Today’s concert concludes this Jazz on Jay season. Its volunteers present these dozen-plus concerts for free, thanks to the series sponsors, both public and private. We offer special thanks for the invaluable technical and logistical support of Proctors Collaborative whose housekeeping staff sets up and removes the tents every week and installs, operates and removes the audio equipment, plus additional support.

Jazz on Jay is presented by the ElectriCity Arts and Entertainment District. 

Sponsors are the New York State Council on the Arts, a Schenectady County Legislature Arts & Culture Grant, Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corporation and The Schenectady Foundation. We also receive support from Schenectady City Hall and this blog: Hoke’s Juke Box.