Vaud & the Villains swing into Ford Amphitheatre tonight

L.A.’s invigorating jazz-swing-gospel-theater collective Vaud & the Villains has called the funky Club Fais Do-Do its home since launching several years ago, but Friday night the band moves into the great outdoors with a performance at the cozy Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood.

The group, which pulls as many as 20 singers, instrumentalists and dancers onstage during its rollicking shows, also is expanding its reach with an increasing number of performances outside the Southland.

“We just went up to Northern California, and out of that we’ve been asked to play the Sacramento Music Festival next May,” singer-saxophonist and group co-founder Andy Comeau, a.k.a. Vaud Overstreet, tells Pop & Hiss.

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“Also last summer, we went to New York City and up through New Hampshire, New England and this great old vaudeville-era hall, the Music Hall in Portsmouth, N.H., asked us to fly back to do a show the week after the Ford,” Comeau said. “So we are doing that and playing New York City again at a pretty cool renovation of the Cutting Room,” where he noted that one of the owners also is a Villains fan.

I profiled Vaud & the Villains last year as part of a larger story about the blossoming community of bands in the region that take their inspiration from the music of the 1920s and 1930s. For Comeau, the trigger was Bruce Springsteen’s Seeger Sessions large-scale band with whom he recorded and toured in 2007-2008.

Ticket information for tonight’s 8:30 p.m. show is available on the Ford Amphitheatre website.

Here’s a video of the band’s live performance of the gospel-folk song “John Henry”:

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Follow Randy Lewis on Twitter: @RandyLewis2