"Hot Club Swing" is named after the Quintet of the Hot Club of France. In the 1930's guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli blended their own musical legacies with the new American art form of jazz. Their recordings soon brought international fame to the new genre. Hot Club Swing is characterized by upbeat, high-energy swing on acoustic instruments, especially guitar, violin, bass, clarinet, and accordion.
Ranger and his father Michael formed the band in 2006, after a pilgrimage to the world’s foremost Hot Club Swing event, the Django Reinhardt festival in Samois Sur Seine, France. The band has now released 4 CDs and performs over 100 times each year at music festivals, concerts in the park, swing dances, weddings and events of all sorts.
Past Shows have included: Edmonds Concert in the Park, Seattle Art Museum, Djangofest Northwest, NW Dance Network, Best of the Northwest Arts Festival, Pender Harbour Jazz Festival, and Ethnic Fest Tacoma.
Ranger Sciacca - Violin
Toby Hanson - Accordion
Mike Sciacca - Rhythm Guitar
Keegan Harshman - Bass
Violin -- RANGER SCIACCA mixes sweet violin playing with solos that swing so hard you can't sit still. He began playing violin at the age of six, dividing his studies between old-time fiddle and classical violin until a chance encounter with a CD of violin jazz ignited his interest in the music of Joe Venuti, Stuff Smith, Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt. Ranger draws from all the genres he has studied, and, according to one reviewer, “plays it like the old kings of swing jazz did”.
Bass -- KEEGAN HARSHMAN
Accordion – TOBY HANSON is the music director for the Valse Café Orchestra. He’s a master of the accordion, equally comfortable on lightning-fast swing tunes, sultry rumbas and sophisticated French musettes.
Rhythm Guitar -- MIKE SCIACCA is Ranger's father, and has been backing up Ranger on guitar for over 20 years. Ranger and Mike are descended from Sicilian immigrants, who played jazz in New York at the start of the 20th century.
2007 & 2010: Finalist--Best World Traditional Song, Independent Music Awards
2011 & 2016: Performed at Djangofest Northwest, North America’s premier Hot Club festival
"Inescapably hum-able and a toe-tap-ful." (Zach Hudson - Victory Music Review)
“Ranger’s ensemble blends tradition with invention, creating a sound at once timeless and fresh.” (Tideland)
“At the heart of their sound is Ranger Sciacca's sweet violin playing… his sense of melody and daring improvisations”. (World Rhythm Webzine)
“So much rhythm from the strings--it's almost hard to imagine until it happens!” (Baker Stocking)
“Innovative Jazz... a spiced up rhythm section that brings a syncopated slant to Django's great music” (Eddie Williams - Full Circuit Sound)
"Ranger And The ‘Re-Arrangers’ deliver guitar work so sharp it cuts in an ensemble as tight as piano wire. The marriage of violin and guitar here is exquisite." (Wildy's World CD Review)
Ranger’s playing “features frantic staccato runs, pizzicato plucking that keeps one on the edge and an overall sense of tone that reveals many shades and moods.” (World Rhythm Webzine)
"(Ranger) plays it like the old kings of swing jazz did." (Alex Young - Consequence of Sound)
“Impressive because not many people can play a fiddle so well, and comforting because it’s nice to know that there’s a community of musicians keeping an old, storied genre alive.” (Alex Young - Consequence of Sound)
