Since their early days performing for Brooklyn’s wild underground parties, the Hot Sardines have skyrocketed to fame with their infectious brand of reinvigorated classic jazz. Described by The New York Times as “potent and assured” and The Times of London as “simply phenomenal,” the group has earned them more than 60 million digital streams across platforms.
The Hot Sardines released C’est La Vie, a bilingual affair of vintage jazz standards and originals written by Bougerol and Palazzo, in August 2023. The title song, a Bossa nova original in French, is a timely ode to fully living each moment, even when you don’t know what the next will bring. Unable to travel home in past years, Elizabeth spent time rediscovering and recording early French music, including the 1938 gypsy-jazz breezer “J’attendrai” (Dino Olivieri, Louis Poterat), the dark Django Reinhardt ballad “Si Tu Savais” (Georges Ulmer), and “I Wish You Love,” the 1942 standard by Charles Trenet and Léo Chauliac, with English lyrics by Albert Beach.
“We called our last album Welcome Home, Bon Voyage because we were literally always getting on a plane. We were so lucky to have that success, and we were finally able to reflect on it,” says Elizabeth. Adds Evan, “So we said, What do we want to do now? It turned out we really wanted to write and record more music.” The pair focused on a stripped-down sound to record remotely, calling on collaborators from Los Angeles to Beijing, using very 21st-century technology to record songs written nearly 100 years ago.
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