Pearl Django

Emerging from the late-'80s partnership of guitarists Neil Anderson and Dudley Hill, the popular acoustic jazz ensemble Pearl Django took shape within the stylistic orbit of Django Reinhardt. Anderson had launched his professional path in the garage band the Wailers, frequently cited as a precursor to later punk groups, while Hill, an unconventional teenager uninterested in rock, gravitated instead toward old-time music and performed alongside the legendary Texas fiddler Benny Thomasson during the 1970s. Their eventual collaboration produced an acoustic swing unit that began as a blues-and-jazz duo before bassist David Firman joined, thereby establishing the core ensemble. In 1995 Vancouver luthier and guitarist Michael Dunn arranged an engagement for the group several hours north in Vancouver, Canada; one of Dunn’s students, Shelley Park—then performing with Michael’s Hot Club of Mars—attended the performance and subsequently became a member of Pearl Django, forging a particularly effective instrumental combination. That same year the band recorded its debut album, Le Jazz Hot, followed the next year by a second release that incorporated violinist Michael Gray into the lineup. Over the ensuing several years Pearl Django received enthusiastic critical notices and maintained a consistent schedule of festival and club appearances. When David Firman departed in 1998, bassist Rick Leppanen took his place, and the revised personnel cut the 1999 album Mystery Pacific. In May of that year the musicians initiated a project honoring Stephane Grappelli, one of Django’s closest associates, and around the completion of this recording they established their own imprint, Modern Hot Records. The band issued its fifth CD in 2000 and appeared on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered the following year.