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Kai Hoffman |
Cat lovers lap up Kai’s swinging set
REVIEW: KAI'S CATS
The Forge
THE revival in jive dancing to live swing jazz has reached Camden Town.
Kai Hoffman and her Kai’s Cats have taken up a monthly residency at The Forge, Delancey Street.
Their first performance drew an enthusiastic crowd of mixed-ability dancers.
Some were trying out jiving for the first time after attending an earlier one-hour dance class.
Others showed off shoe-shuffling steps, graceful twists and turns and “over the head and round the back” spin moves.
Sadly, lindyhopping and jitterbugging were not much in evidence.
Whatever the DJ mixer crowd say, there’s nothing like dancing to good live music – and that counts for jazz as much as for other musical genres.
Kai’s Cats perform swing music in the style of Louis Jordan and Louis Prima of the 1940s and early 1950s, which can include such numbers as Pennies from Heaven, Mona Lisa, Route 66 and Saturday Night Fish Fry.
Kai Hoffman has an ebullient, effervescent style, a wide vocal range and sufficient energy to keep singing at full throttle for two-and-a-half hours with only a 30-minute break to refuel.
If anything, the high octane performance was too relentless. More tempo changes and muted trumpet now and then would be welcome.
Kai Hoffman reached swing jazz singing through a circuitous route.
She came to this country from America 10 years ago to continue with her French horn studies at the Royal College of Music.
“I’d always sung a bit on the side,” she says. “So, after I joined the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, I started to sing some jazz numbers and found that I could do it and enjoyed it.
“I took up singing in a big way, initially through private lessons to become an opera singer.
“Eventually I became good enough to sing such roles as Carmen.”
Eighteen months ago, she formed Kai’s Cat to play at Ronnie Scott’s where the dance class and dance club format was developed.
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