Secondhand Smoke

Words such as “fierce” and “explosive” rarely describe acoustic-powered, string-band music. But they’re an apt description of the music of Hot Club of Cowtown, an Austin-based trio that mixes the western swing of Bob Wills with the hot jazz of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli into something downright combustible.

With members in their late 20s and early 30s, this three-piece combo brings a youthful spirit to the traditional music of a bygone era. The Hot Club of Cowtown--which appears Thursday at Linda’s Doll Hut in Anaheim--features singer-guitarist Whit Smith, violinist-singer Elana Fremerman and upright bassist Billy Horton.

Though bent on capturing the heart of a new generation, they don’t plan to tamper with the music’s character.

“When we hear something like ‘contemporary sensibility,’ we cringe because that usually means goofy guys wearing matching suits playing rock ‘n’ roll on a trombone,” Fremerman said in an interview from a tour stop in Eugene, Ore. “We try to stay stylistically sincere. We’re not going to overhaul the music. They’re the same songs you might hear a bunch of old-timers playing at a jam session in Yuma. . . .

“We just play it a little faster and more frenetic than most. Music that people generally play at 33 [rpm], we naturally play it at 41. I need that spark . . . to be swept up in the emotion of the moment.”

Smith agrees. “We don’t want to modernize it with any kind of rock or funk or anything like that. [But] you try hard to color the songs in your own way . . . so that your personality will come out. Part of that stems from our working together as a trio, where we’re leaner, more mobile and a bit sharper than a big band.”

The roots of the Hot Club stretch back to New York City, 1995, where Smith was forming an 11-piece swing band called Western Caravan. He enlisted Fremerman, a Kansas native who was attending college in Manhattan. That band fizzled, so the two moved to San Diego and performed as a duo for about a year.

They shifted to Austin in December 1997 and shortly thereafter were joined by Beaumont-native Horton. Their name, the Hot Club of Cowtown, was inspired by acoustic jazz artists Grappelli and Reinhardt when they were members of the Hot Club de France in the 1930s.

The trio’s recording debut, last year’s “Swingin’ Stampede” (HighTone Records) offers a potent blend of western swing, hot jazz, traditional fiddle tunes and Tin Pan Alley standards. Smith’s crisply played guitar licks, Fremerman’s spicy violin flourishes and Horton’s propulsive rhythms form the album’s sonic core, with accordion, steel guitar and piano accents rounding out the mix.

Among the album’s 13 covers are three written by the legendary Bob Wills, cited as the group’s biggest influence.

“You can’t mistake who it is as soon as you hear his music,” Smith said. “Whether he was leading a four-piece string band or an 18-piece big band, you knew exactly who was playing. . . . And he was always in touch with his audience. He was very charismatic.”

Their album features Wills’ renowned fiddler, Johnny Gimble, on several tracks. Fremerman said playing alongside one of Wills’ Texas Playboys was simply awe-inspiring.

“His soloing on ‘Ida Red’ is tremendous, and his double-stops during “My Confession” were just incredible,” Fremerman said. “I got to play a couple of songs with him, and our twin fiddle parts were the highlight of the sessions for me.”

How did these relatively young folks become interested in western swing and “hot jazz,” a softly crooned style from the ‘20s and ‘30s?

“My mom is a classical violinist, and I was classically trained,” Fremerman said. “I enjoyed playing in symphonies as a kid. But when I first heard the jazz violin--stuff by Joe Venuti, Stuff Smith, Stephane Grappelli--it felt like this amazing fusion of all the things I love. It’s fun, yet as technically sophisticated as you want to get. It’s challenging because it demands all the imagination and chops you can bring to it.”

Moreover, she finds swing music a happy sound.

“There’s this upbeat underpinning with a driving rhythm and hummable melody. [But] it’s so much more accessible than classical, where as highly as I regard it, there’s always this kind of exclusive thing going on.”

*

For Smith, who was a frustrated rocker working part-time at a New York record store, the catalyst was the music of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.

“I hadn’t been happy in rock ‘n’ roll for quite some time and needed a change in a big way,” he recalled. “Then one day, someone at Tower Records played the ‘Tiffany Transcriptions,’ these ‘40s radio broadcasts of Bob Wills. I could feel this energy and drive . . . and these great guitar solos blew me away.”

(The nine-volume “Tiffany Transcriptions” is now available on the Kaleidoscope label.)

“Instead of more loud, hard rock, I got into Benny Goodman, Milton Brown, Django Reinhardt, Spade Cooley and Tommy Duncan,” Smith said. “I was also a lot happier.”

With swing now in vogue, the timing seems right for the Hot Club of Cowtown to reach a wider audience with its incendiary live shows.

“We’ve been drawing enthusiastic crowds, although sometimes people think what we’re playing is bluegrass,” Fremerman said. “But that’s OK. Once they decide they like it, I don’t want to give them a lesson in the minutiae of music. Boy, do they love to pack the dance floor too. It’s so much fun to see what you’re doing expressed in the bodies of other people.”

* The Sinners, Hot Club of Cowtown, Majestics, Oyster Rodeo and the Hollisters play Thursday at Linda’s Doll Hut, 107 S. Adams St., Anaheim. 9 p.m. $5 (714) 533-1286.