1996 - Fun in France, and the rise of the Hot Club

In the first part of 1996, things continued much as before. Rhythm guitarist from Django's Tigers; Barry Taylor, had told me several times about the guitarist Paul Johnson who I had met in 1994 whilst playing at the Elm Tree with Swing 91. Paul had previously had his own Django inspired band called 'Fantasie', but had not played for some time due to family commitments. I had met Paul again more recently at a Fapy Lafertin gig in Nottingham, and we had talked about getting together for a jam sometime.
Before this occurred, there was my annual trip to the Samois festival coming up. Once again there was lots of great jamming, and the highlight on the stage was a fantastic performance by Bireli Lagrene and Christian Escoude.

 Jamming at Samois with John Witty, Micky Dunne, and Colin Pye, in June 1996

 Meanwhile, after I'd moved to Nottingham in 1994, my old friends Jim Ward and Ted Carr had relocated to France; and this year, along with Grass drummer Richard Prentice; they came up to the Samois festival as well. It was so great to see them again, and after the festival had finished, I went back down to the Cognac area of France where they were living, and spent a great week of jamming, busking and doing gigs with them. It was so much fun to play some rock stuff on live gigs again, with some gypsy/jazz thrown in; with myself and Jim swapping between guitar and bass, or two guitars, depending on what suited whatever we were playing at the time. It was a blast!

Jamming with Jim Ward in France, July 1996

Grass band in France

Back on the home front, Paul Johnson and I spent a lot of time getting together for jams, and working on material for playing together. We had gigs in mind both as a duo of two guitars, and as a trio, and possibly even a quartet.

Although we did an early quartet gig with Matt Palmer on clarinet; Matt's own career as a jazz musician was beginning to take off on the trad jazz scene, and although Matt would return on a more permanent footing in due course; we began to focus on gigs as a trio with John Coulson on bass where possible, and duo gigs for smaller venues. This led to a long residency as a duo in the Chez Pierre french restaurant at the Center Parcs holiday resort in Sherwood Forest, which would last for over 10 years.

Before the year was out, we recorded a demo tape, and secured a residency for the trio at the popular music venue; the Lion Inn, in Nottingham. As 1997 dawned, things were already looking good for this new project.

Pete Dalby jamming with the Hot Club Trio at the Lion Inn