Doors: 10:00 PM // Showtime: 10:30 PM, 21+

In the talented hands of the New York-based ensemble, music first made famous decades ago comes alive through their brassy horn arrangements, rollicking piano melodies, and vocals from a chanteuse who transports listeners to a different era with the mere lilt of her voice. On French Fries & Champagne, The Hot Sardines new album for Universal Music Classics, the jazz collective broadens its already impressive palette, combining covers and originals as they effortlessly channel New York speakeasies, Parisian cabarets and New Orleans jazz halls. Bandleader Evan Palazzo and lead singer Elizabeth Bougerol met in 2007 after they both answered a Craigslist ad about a jazz jam session above a Manhattan noodle shop. The unlikely pair she was a London School of Economics-educated travel writer who grew up in France, Canada and the Ivory Coast, he was a New York City-born and raised actor who studied theater at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia bonded over their love for Fats Waller. Influenced also by such greats as Dinah Washington, Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday, they began playing open mic nights and small gigs and by 2011, they headlined Midsummer Night Swing at New York’s Lincoln Center. The Hot Sardines self-titled debut album, named by iTunes as one of the best jazz albums of 2014, spent more than a year on the Billboard Jazz Chart, debuting in the top 10 alongside Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga. The accolades began pouring in for the band: Downbeat called The Hot Sardines one of the most delightfully energetic bands on New York’s hot music scene, while The London Times praised their crisp musicianship and immaculate and witty showmanship, declaring them simply phenomenal. We found ourselves in the perfect place at the perfect time, says Evan. As we explored this 100-year-old jazz, we began to look at it as a journey forward, not so much as a look back. This is music for today, not a museum piece. Indeed, People Will Say We’re In Love from the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! gets reinvented as a tart tango. Jazz standard Comes Love starts as a minuet before vocalist Elizabeth, singing in her native French, conjures up spirits of 1930s Paris. The Hot Sardines even upend Robert Palmers 1985 classic Addicted To Love with Elizabeth’s cool vocals and hot horn arrangements. Alan Cumming pairs with Elizabeth for a mischievous take on When I Get Low, I Get High, a song popularized by Ella Fitzgerald. The Emmy-winning actor (The Good Wife) came to mind as Elizabeth, Evan and producer Eli Wolf (Elvis Costello, Al Green, Norah Jones) conceptualized the album. When I saw him in the revival of Cabaret, I knew we had to ask him, she says. Turns out he was already a fan of the band and said yes right away. It was so much fun, and a real honor.