Local acts to fill art deco setting with sounds of yore

When you picture the ideal Christmas, you’re probably summoning sweet, sepia-toned scenes from earlier times. “Just like the ones I used to know,” you know?

Nostalgia is baked right into our Christmas pudding. That’s why, to program a holiday concert, Vancouver’s Kiggins Theatre invited a couple of hot musical units that look coolly backward for inspiration. The concert has been set for tonight and christened the “Art Deco Holiday Spectacular.” It will feature The Juleps, a swinging tight-harmony trio, and the four-piece Ensemble Gitane that’s a Gypsy-style subgroup — two guitars, bass and bandleader Sammuel Murry-Hawkins on flute and vocals — of Vancouver’s own Ne Plus Ultra Jass Orchestra.

It will also feature the art deco beauty of the Kiggins, considered an architectural masterpiece when it opened in 1936. The theater will be appropriately decked out for the holidays, we’re told.

The greatest!

Murry-Hawkins said his journeys through musical history started in childhood. “My parents raised our family in a household that really appreciated old things,” he said. “I was raised attending museum events, and the household was furnished in antiques and artifacts.” Of course, a household like that was also steeped in classical music, he said.

But Murry-Hawkins went on to fall in love with lush, beautiful “hotel orchestrations” of earliest jazz, he said. Eventually he surveyed the local musical scene and realized that a “fully orchestrated, traditional dance band playing the sweet and hot music” of the 1920s and ’30s was sorely missing. So he and some musical associates launched the Ne Plus Ultra Jass Orchestra — a 12-piece combo featuring tuba, banjo and other instruments from the days when this musical style was so new, it hadn’t even developed its standardized, zz-rich spelling yet.

The Ne Plus Ultra Jass Orchestra (the phrase means “no further beyond,” that is, the greatest!) has been growing fast since it began, Murry-Hawkins said, with a regular gig every third Friday at the Dekum Ballroom, 704 N.E. Dekum St. in Portland. Recently it’s even formed subgroups that can entertain at different-sized events: a “distilled” seven-piece orchestra and the four-piece, guitar-driven Ensemble Gitane that will open this Art Deco concert. Get ready for swinging versions of holiday classics, Murry-Hawkins said, as well as some “beautiful, romantic music” you probably haven’t heard before.

The Juleps

One julep is a sweet, cool drink with a little kick. The Juleps are a sweet, cool Vancouver tight-harmony trio that have been kicking the sound of the Andrews Sisters for the past couple of years.

It started at a dinner party thrown by voice teacher Janet Lindsley, the owner of Mini Mozarts’ Preschool in downtown Vancouver and a lover of all things vintage. According to her friend Christi Clay, “Janet’s idea of a great dinner party is everyone gathered around the piano and sheet music scattered everywhere when it’s all over.”

After that, Lindsley shared her brainstorm with Clay about forming a group to sing Andrews Sisters songs. Clay, who’d trained as a classical and choral singer, still found the idea of all those intricate jazz chords daunting — and definitely didn’t want to try making it in the music industry, she said — but when Lindsley found a third singing sister in Chelsea Barnes, the resulting trio “sounded awesome,” Clay said.

Still, The Juleps spent a whole year developing their vocal chops and their special blend — and their stable of guest musicians — before bringing it to the world. Nowadays they perform about twice a month, Clay said, including at every First Friday Art Walk, upstairs in the Kiggins’ Marquis Lounge. The Juleps have also released a five-song CD called “Frisky.”

At this Art Deco Holiday Spectacular, the Juleps will be accompanied by crooning drummer Charles Pike, who’s got the baritone pipes to bring off Bing Crosby classics like “Silver Bells” and “White Christmas,” plus guitarist Jason Reichert, bassist James Cook and clarinetist Andrew Alikhanov.

It’s worth noting, Clay said, that The Juleps often sing in spots that aren’t wheelchair accessible — but the Kiggins’ main auditorium is. That doesn’t mean the group’s audience is generally gray, she added. Especially in Portland, she said, there’s a hopping swing-dance scene populated by lots of 20- and 30-somethings.

Up here, both Clay and Murry-Hawkins said, what’s missing is a great ballroom. Meanwhile, Murry-Hawkins said: “We really hope people will come support this, because there aren’t that many opportunities to enjoy some quality live entertainment and not cross the river.”