Last night we drove down to the Gene Autry Museum in Los Angeles to see Hot Club of Cowtown.

If you're not familiar with the music of Hot Club, think Django Reinhardt meets Bob Wills. Hot Club is a trio of amazing musicians, but guitarist Whit Smith is a particularly stellar guitarist. It's all very western and very jazzy.

Here's an article I did for InsideVC.com in advance of the show:

Don't try to pigeonhole Hot Club of Cowtown. It's not that the band will object, but the task is futile. So just don't try.

"We cornered ourselves for a while (as a western swing band), but a lot of people who might like us, maybe people who like jazz, hear that we play western, and so they never hear us," said guitarist Whit Smith. "We've played western festivals and been the least western band there. Most audiences like us once we're all together, but telling people that have never heard what we do can be a little tricky."

It's not jazz, at least the way that word is defined by modern music fans.

And there is a certain western breeze blowing through the songs, but it's more cowboy-movie western than country twang.

That's one reason the bands appearance Saturday at the Gene Autry Museum seems so appropriate. Hot Club of Cowtown would have fit in well in any Gene Autry or Roy Rogers movie you care to name.

If western music is about endless blue skies and wide open spaces, Hot Club captures that essence, but with a sophisticated lilt that few western tribute bands understand.....