Swing, Jump and Shout for Joy!

Starting out as a Gypsy-jazz quartet in the University of Utah music program, Hot House West (HHW) has gone through an evolution of iterations. Now a 14-piece outfit, they’ve also become a non-profit organization. By organizing concerts, dances and mentorships, HHW has taken strides to improve the quality of music culture in Utah. So what motivates a swing band to turn their attention to uplifting their musical community rather than focusing on personal ambition?

“We really wanted to have opportunities for the swing orchestra to play and to make them more than just a concert,” says Executive Director Nathan Royal, “but more of an interactive experience where people are dancing, socializing, enjoying the music, you know, just connecting.”

A year or more ago, HHW was hosting a monthly event downtown where everything from food trucks and drag queens would make the scene, but conditions and other factors contributed to halting those shows. “We stopped because we found that doing a monthly show in the summertime, it was hard to be indoors in a hot space,” Royal says. “We were also doing Kingsbury Hall for the first time, and we wanted to give some space around that show and started doing less of them. So the Joy and Rhythm series that we’re doing now is us reigniting that experience and evolving it.”

One significant change is that these shows will be free to the public, and that through community sponsorships, they’ll be able to take away one of the hindrances of getting people out to the concerts. “We originally were going to ticket these because for me, it was going to be an experiment,, “to see if we can bring in some income,” Royal says. “That way we can push ads out to the world. It’s been my feeling that Utah needs a little bit of practice paying for tickets. But I met with The Blocks about promotion and to see what sort of resources they had to help promote the show, thinking they might post about it, but they wanted to come on as a sponsor and gave us a pretty generous donation to be one of our co-presenters for the event in exchange for us making it free, which was great because I don’t really want to create barriers to access it, and I want to get a lot of people down there and get them to celebrate around this.”

Because of the genre’s long history and how many people perceive jazz and swing as their great grandparents’ music, one of HHW’s biggest missions is to tear down those misconceptions and show audiences that it lives and breathes and is just as tangible as any other genre.

“Jazz is such joyful music and can be so interactive,” Royal says. “It’s party and dance music, and so we’re excited to get to as many people as we can. People have a sort of connotation in their mind about jazz and how for 100 years it’s been highly intellectualized, but the kind of swing music that we play, people will really connect with it. We want to bring them along and show them that it’s joyful, energetic and fun. I think people are very hungry to have real, authentic, connected experiences.”

HHW has dedicated their energy into cultivating the music scene here in Salt Lake rather than looking elsewhere for success; they’ve not only planted a flag here, but they’ve made it their mission to create a culture that will allow musicians to thrive here. “We’ve felt that we need to do so much work at home,” Royal says, “creating opportunities and building a stronger culture around the music and changing the attitudes of people at home around music. Like convincing them that music is worth going to see.”

“I think that you can be more effective by being collaborative,” Royal continues. “If we’re successful, that means there’s better musicians to play with. I’ve got more people that I can call via a band like the Western Stars getting created, or the State Street Stompers coming together means that they’re out there building enthusiasm about Swing music from different angles. All of that creates a deeper sense of community and connection and enthusiasm around the music that we play.”

When you see the heart, soul and sweat that the Hot House West folks put into their efforts to build the music scene here in Salt Lake, you can tell that passion is what drives this operation. Make your way to the Gallivan Center on June 24, July 10 and 23 and August 28 from 6-10 p.m. for a night of swing-jazz, dancing, community and fun.

Read more about the Utah jazz scene:
Local Review: Flamingo — Pink Paradise
The Music is Hoppin’ at Hopkins

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