Includes Cajun/Zydeco dance lesson with Diana Castillo at 8 pm.

Just back from road and air trips that took the group from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival to a swing through Northern Europe, the Savoy Family Band returns to one of its favorite dance halls for a night of mostly traditional Cajun music performed by two generations of family musicians. From Louisiana, the Savoy Family Band features two of the greatest names in Cajun music – Marc and Ann Savoy – and their two grown sons, who are carrying on family and cultural traditions. “Musically, they surely ain’t no stuffy preservationists,” the Los Angeles Weekly wrote. “Whether (playing) a bitter lament or an earthy hard-driving breakdown, with Marc’s squeezebox, Ann’s guitar, and their highly capable sons Joel and Wilson on fiddle and piano, the Savoys cover the Cajun spectrum with a dazzling mixture of spiritual joy and virtuoso voltage.”

Marc and Ann Savoy are two-thirds of Cajun music’s most acclaimed group, the Savoy-Doucet Band (with fiddler Michael Doucet), which revived and helped globally popularize Cajun music through touring and its series of recordings for El Cerrito’s Arhoolie Records. Arhoolie issued both of the Savoy Family Band’s CDs: “Cajun Album” and “Turn Loose But Don’t Let Go.” The band was a highlight of last year’s celebrated Arhoolie Records 50^th anniversary concert in Berkeley and followed it with a wild night of dance at Ashkenaz.

Marc runs the Savoy Music Center in his home town of Eunice, Louisiana, where he builds accordions and holds Saturday morning jam sessions. Award-winning author of books on Cajun music and culture, Ann also leads her own bands, including the jazz and torch song group the Sleepless Knights and the all-woman Cajun band Magnolia Sisters, who will tour France in October. In 2006 Ann and Linda Ronstadt released an album of Cajun vocal duets, “Adieu False Heart.” She produced all-star CDs of Cajun (“Evangeline Made”) and zydeco (“Creole Bred”) performed by such musicians as Taj Mahal, Richard Thompson, Ronstadt, and John Fogerty. Ann and Joel appeared and performed in the film “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.” Her music is also featured in the film “All the King’s Men.”

Joel and Wilson Savoy were raised among all of the greats of Cajun music. Joel has played the fiddle for most of his life. He co-founded the Red Stick Ramblers, a Cajun/jazz/swing combo, and runs his own recording studio and record company, Valcour Records. Lately he has been touring with accordionist Jesse Lége, and the duo played in June at Ashkenaz. Wilson leads the hot young Cajun/Creole band the Pine Leaf Boys (featured in the hit HBO TV series “Treme”) and teaches accordion at music camps. Both sons have received multiple Grammy Award nominations in recent years as performers and producers. 

www.savoyfamilycajunband.com