Allin Kibben has brought Gypsy Jazz to Southern Arizona in many forms with enthusiam by forming the Hot Club of Tucson, hosting Djams and getting many Gypsy Jazz players in the desert southwest aquainted and performing with each other. Hot Club of Tucson has opened for National Acts (Austin Lounge Lizards, Laurie Lewis) performed at festivals, theaters, and corporate events (Target), SW Regional Lindy Hop competition, as well as the headliners for the Tucson Jazz Society's "Jazz Under the Stars" concert series.
Hot Club of Tucson was recently invited to perform at DFNW 2007. May be next year!
A.K. founded the Hot Club of Tucson after a long hiatus from the music business to support his family. Prior to that A.K. toured with national and international recording artists as a roadie, sound engineer, road manager and performer with the likes of Gone Johnson, Michael Martin Murphey, Debra McColl (Jimmy Buffet), Firefall (short stint), and Mannfred Mann's Earth Band. When A.K. wasn't on the road he was a sound man at various Boulder Colorado clubs. A.K. also performed with " A Dollar Short and a Day Late" as well as "Black Hills Bluegrass Band" and Donnie Williams.
A.K. has opened and shared the stage with Willie Nelson, Hot Rize, Jerry Jeff Walker, Norman Blake, John Hartford and many other artists back in the 70's...
30 years later A.K. now focuses on acoustic swing jazz and continues his day job...
Allin plays Dell'Arte guitars and uses Wegen Picks...
Arizona Daily Star Interview
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Allin Kibben
Rhythm guitarist for gypsy jazz band Hot Club of Tucson
Tucson, Arizona
If you want Gypsy jazz in the Old Pueblo, there's only one band to turn to — Hot Club of Tucson.
"I formed the Hot Club of Tucson two years ago for one reason — to bring this style of music to Southern Arizona," rhythm guitarist Allin Kibben said. "I wanted people to hear this music because you can't go anywhere in this town to hear it."
Hot Club of Tucson plays traditional and contemporary jazz, swing waltzes and Latin rhythm compositions in addition to the danceable acoustic swing jazz known as Gypsy jazz, or Manouche style, that jazz master Django Reinhardt made famous in the 1930s with his Quintet of the Hot Club of France.
"Any time you see Hot Club, you know that's Gypsy jazz," Kibben said. "It's not an original name, but it does get pretty hot down here, so it's apropos."
Kibben hasn't always been a Gypsy jazz guitarist. He began his musical career as a cello and bass player and began to learn guitar in the early '70s. He moved to Tucson in 1986 and formed Hot Club of Tucson in 2004. The band's first three members — Kibben, lead guitarist Matt Mitchell and bassist Evan Dain — played their first performance at the Tucson Folk Festival a couple of years ago.
"We did two rehearsals," Kibben said. "On our second rehearsal, we recorded a little CD and submitted it to the Tucson Folk Festival, and they put us before the headliners. We got the best spot two years ago. We did a couple rehearsals and went down to the folk festival, and people went nuts."
Since then, Hot Club of Tucson has been a quintet with Tempe violinist Mike Cirillo and clarinetist Marco Rosano. The band will release its first album this summer and has a busy performance schedule in the meantime.
How did you get into Gypsy jazz: "I've always been into swing music. I've been playing swing music my whole life, and Gypsy jazz falls into that category. I started playing Gypsy jazz after playing all kinds of styles of music, bluegrass to rock 'n' roll, for so many years, and it just got stagnant for me. I started listening to Django Reinhardt back in the '70s. I played in Western swing bands, and we would do some Django Reinhardt tunes for break songs. About three years ago, I got into it hook, line and sinker. That's all I do."
Why do you like this type of music? "I'm an instrumentalist. I've never really been a vocalist. This music really shows the skills and talents of the musicians. They get to show their abilities, and it's a whole different style. It's a whole different right hand and picking style and a lot of chord substitutions you don't often hear."
Who is Hot Club of Tucson's audience? "We draw not only the jazz crowd, but also the bluegrassers because it's all instrumental music. We have a wide spectrum of draw. We get people of all ages."
What are the band's goals? "We're really looking forward to having our own showcase concert with the Tucson Jazz Society. The goal is to keep the Gypsy jazz in Southern Arizona and take it to one of the festivals in the United States. Seattle is one of my goals — DjangoFest NorthWest — that's really the premier Gypsy jazz event."
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