In 2022, three of Music City’s heaviest hitters – the prodigiously talented Steve Dawson, soughtafter multi-instrumentalist Fats Kaplin, and session-veteran bassist David Jacques – were busy playing gigs, fulfilling studio dates, and producing for others, but they found time to join forces over a mutual love for the stylized Pacific Island hot jazz of the 1920s and ’30s.
However, soon after formin...
The narrative establishes a pattern where highly specialized, esoteric artistic interests—specifically the historical sound of Pacific Island hot jazz and vintage Hawaiian music—function as a powerful mechanism for aggregating and connecting elite, high-level musical talent. The focus on instrumentation and tuning systems (D6 tuning, specific uke models) is not merely descriptive; it details a shared, sophisticated, and almost academic knowledge base that acts as an immediate point of entry for ...