Amazing and beautiful mix of accordion, violin, oboe, English horn, tenor guitar, clarinet, bass clarinet, piccolo and voice.
On Monday, July 9, returning for their second appearance at Bend’s Original El Burrito is the Euro Café Gypsy Jazz quartet Beaucoup Chapeaux. With an amazing and beautiful mix of accordion, violin, oboe, English horn, tenor guitar, clarinet, bass clarinet, piccolo, and voice, Beaucoup Chapeaux will entrance you. “Beaucoup Chapeaux plays a mixture of music that oozes with joyful world overtones… If you like your music with an old world European quality and played straight from the hip with no excuses, look no further as this will be your cup-otea and then some!” –Mikail Graham, DJ, event and record producer, writing in KVMR Radio’s “Top Picks 2011” review.
Beaucoup Chapeaux’s origins began one fall morning in 2008, when the owner of a small French café in Nevada City heard Maggie McKaig singing and playing her accordion at the farmers market. A few months later, she invited Maggie to play in the café on Valentine’s Day. Maggie agreed, but said she would like to bring a few others to play with her. And so, she gathered together two extraordinary musical friends and cohorts, Luke Wilson, with his tenor guitar, and Murray Campbell, with his violin oboe, and English horn. Despite blizzard conditions that shut down most of the county, people filled the café that snowy Valentine’s. The music was a big hit. The café owner was thrilled, and asked the trio, “Would you come play on Friday nights?” And so, they did.
A few weeks later, the very eclectic new music composer and musician Randy McKean was in the audience. After listening to the first set, McKean asked to sit in–he just happened to have his clarinet with him–and his bass clarinet too. They began to play, and the mix was magical. And so, McKean joined the band. With a wide array of musical backgrounds and instruments, the name Beaucoup Chapeaux, which is indeed, grammatically incorrect French for “many hats”, seemed a good fit.
As all who experience Beaucoup Chapeaux often exclaim, it’s just like being in a café in Europe. In their three years together, the band has played hundreds of concerts in Nevada County, as well festivals, clubs, cafés, and house concerts in San Francisco, Sebatopol, Inverness, Sacramento, Ashland, Bend, Portland, Chehalis, Tacoma, Olympia, and Seattle, and they released their first CD together in summer of 2011. Along with some “brilliant” original music, their repertoire includes hauntingly wild and beautiful tunes from France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Serbia, Macedonia, Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, South America, North America, and more.
Audiences adore this band, their music, and the true joie de vivre they create. Their café gig has become certainly one of the most, if not the most popular attraction on Friday nights in Nevada City–not just to hear great music, but as a gathering spot, and the place locals bring visitors to get the essence of the bustling and artsy community of Nevada City. That Beaucoup Chapeaux has become one of the most sought after groups for events in Nevada County, an area that overflows with incredible artists, is a testimony to their talent. As one Facebook fan wrote: “This band is scary good -all virtuosos, all acoustic, they drive the teeming bistro bonhomie in a petit cafe and wherever they go.” Aside from their many gigs in Nevada County, in July 2012 the intrepid quartet will take off on their second summer tour of Oregon and Washington.
“Beaucoup Chapeaux has created a very magical niche with this music. It’s a feel, an ambiance, something lovers can whisper behind and get up and dance to. It is so much Parisian Bistro or Italian Cafe, part Circus, and is very eccentric.”
—Paul Kamm and Eleanore MacDonald, award winning singer/songwriters.