lePercolateur

As the railyard bled into dark warehouses, the stranger found himself alone. Street after street he walked with night taking control of his senses until his ears perked at the music of sirens. The dulcet tones of violin, bass, and the female voice spiraled through the darkness from the sole source of warmth in sight. Helplessly drawn in, he found the last lit trailer in camp that seemed to have sprung forth from another time, and there--in the form of three women--was both the past and the future in one. He introduced himself as Sam Random and explained that his path and his name were inextricably linked. Sensing a kindred spirit, they proffered their names: Marielle de Rocca-Serra held the violin, Stacy McMichael propped up the bass fiddle, and Nicole Peterson-Pearce's voice had beckoned him in. As Sam sat at their fire and opened up his tattered guitar case, another man, his elder, stepped forth from the darkness having been drawn in from afar. Armed too with a guitar, he announced himself as Kevin Rush and sat with no concern as to whether he'd been invited - simply knowing he was home. Fueled by coffee black as the night they found themselves in and so dark it could have been wartime, they played through 'til the sun began painting the eastern horizon red. Winding their caravan through the windiest of cities, lePercolateur has spent the time since this fateful night sweeping in to transport concert-goers to a time where music was a liberating and cathartic respite from persecution--where the frenetic energy of struggling to simply 'be' coalesced with the unbridled spirit of gypsy music and burgeoned into swing dancing. The troupe transforms Katerina's into a sold-out Parisian dance hall circa 1937 on a monthly basis. Their high-energy sideshow has made Percolateers of attendees of the Jazz Institute of Chicago's 2011 Jazz Tour, the 2010 and 2011 Chicago Cultural Center's "Music Without Borders" series, and Purdue University's Swing Dance. They were Featured Artists in both 2009 and 2011 in the Windy City Lindy Exchange, through which they flaunted their uncanny ability to seamlessly fuse two different eras via their reinterpretations of modern pop through the medium of hipster gypsy jazz. Along the way, these temporally displaced merry-makers placed 3rd at the Chicago Bluegrass and Blues Festival's "Last Banjo Standing" contest. The coming Spring of 2012 finds lePercolateur slated to release their debut album as the latest band to join the Chicago Sessions record label. Between now and then, many more are sure to wake from a dreamlike daze wondering in which year they find themselves, and wishing it was what their senses told them.

• http://www.chicagogypsyjazz.com/