Café Impromptu Quintet is an all female ensemble of swing jazz musicians who play the repertoire of Romani-Belgian jazz guitarist and composer, Django Reinhardt. The band infuses their music with early classics, French chanson and Bossa Nova.
Café Impromptu features: bassist Kristi O’Donnell. Adrienne Reed, vocals/accordion. Jennie Mayer, guitar. Tobi Stone on saxophone/clarinet and Molly Felder, vocals/percussion.
Based on Whidbey Island and the Seattle area, the band originated from women attending Djangofest Northwest in 2014 in Langley, WA to play this style of music.
Kristi founded Café Impromptu as a gathering place for women to play music during Djangofest Northwest in 2015. We formed a core quartet in 2019 and continue to play music on the path of Vita Creativa ~ as quartet, quintet and sometimes octet!
To learn more about Café Impromptu, visit: www.Kristio.com
Meet Café Impromptu Quintet:
Kristi O’Donnell is the founder of Café Impromptu, (2015) a ‘pop up’ ensemble where female musicians playing the genre of Django Reinhardt’s music can play and perform together. She founded the core band of Café Impromptu in 2019 with Jennie Mayer, Christi Lao and Maile Hutchinson. The ensemble ebbs and flows per availability and additional musicians joining in.
Kristi is a double bassist whose bass playing is rhythmically driving and harmonically direct. She performs regularly in the PNW with Trio Nouveau, The Dewey Decibles and Wittlich/Chapman Quartet.
Ms. O’Donnell performed with The Hot Club of Troy in Djangofest NW, America’s premier Django festival, 2015- 2023, at Django Sur Lennon, County Donegal, Ireland, Manouche NW and various festivals and venues in the PNW.
Adrienne Reed, accordionist and vocalist, grew up studying classical piano. After accompanying elementary school choirs and running a piano studio from her home in Seattle for several years, it was a natural extension of Adrienne’s interest in swing dancing and her dual Franco-American citizenship that led her to study jazz piano and accordion and the music of Django Reinhardt. in addition to playing with Café Impromptu, Adrienne is a founding member of Lulu Swing Band, one of the few all female groups playing this genre of music in North America.
Jennie Mayer, guitarist for Café Impromptu, has a classical piano and flute background. Her first love of swing, jazz, and the American Songbook, was revisited after meeting Pearl Django and taking courses at Jazz Night School in 2015, where it first became possible to play the music she always wanted to play. She is a founding member of the all female group Lulu Swing Band and is also currently playing guitar and melodica with the Zoot Alors Quartet.
Molly Felder is vocalist and percussionist for Café Impromptu singing with heartfelt emotion and playing her vintage 1950’s cocktail drum.
Molly is lead singer for the band Swan Dive based out of Nashville TN and has backed artists including Amy Grant, Ricky Skaggs, Don Henley, and most recently has been honored to sing with the Hot Club of Troy. She performs regularly with Whidbey Island’s Trio Nouveau.
Tobi Stone grew up in Washington State in a musical family, learning guitar from a young age. She started band in 5th grade with her dad’s clarinet. In middle school, she heard a professional saxophonist perform and fell in love with the sound. She went home that day and asked for lessons. She was blessed to have family and community support to study music at University of Washington, graduating with a Bachelors in Music Performance, emphasis in Jazz Studies. Tobi has studied with many teachers including Darren Motamedy, Jordan Ruwe, Don Lanphere, Bert Wilson, Michael Brockman, Bill Smith, Marc Seales, Nancy King, Jay Thomas, Rob Scheps, Randy Halberstadt, Jordan Ruwe, Paul Harshman, Mike Gergich, Ann Reynolds, Cynthia Hughen and Kaija. Tobi is a member of Earshot Jazz. She plays and teaches Saxophone, Clarinet, Flute, and beginning Piano and Guitar. Tobi lives in Seattle and enjoys cooking, reading, writing, nature, animals, bicycling, long boarding, paddle boarding and traveling. She supports a greener environment.
Over the last 25 years, Tobi has performed professionally with several bands. She toured and recorded with The Tiptons Saxophone Quartet and Drums across Europe and in the US, from 2002-2007, and with Reptet Jazz Septet in the US, from 2001-2008. She performed as the first woman instrumentalist with The Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra from 2012-2015. She has played with The 5th Avenue Theatre, The Village Theatre, Spectrum Dance Studio Theatre. She has also performed on live radio and TV broadcasts for KEXP, KPLU, Seattle Joe TV, and KING 5 TV.
Tobi has appeared with Dave Brubeck, Kristen Chenoweth, Branford Marsalis, Anat Cohen, Meshiya Lake, Don Lanphere, Nancy King, and Bert Wilson. She has performed with The Seattle Symphony Orchestra, The Tacoma Symphony Orchestra, and Seattle Women’s Jazz Orchestra. She has performed and recorded with Clave Gringa, Septet of Darkness, Picoso, Choro Loco, Big World Breaks, Zubatto Syndicate, Cataldo, Kissing Potion, Publish The Quest, Thione Diop’s Afro Groove, The Jefferson Rose Band, B’shnorkestra, Ann Reynolds Jazz Duo, Susan Palmer Jazz Duo, and Night and Day Jazz Trio.
Musicians who have played with Café Impromptu over the years:
Lisa Liu is a guitarist based in Brooklyn, NY. She plays gypsy jazz, experimental, folk, rock, and solo guitar. Liu is an Artist Ambassador for Santa Cruz Guitar Company and is also endorsed by Krivo Pickups. She is a Teaching Artist at Django In June, and has also been an Artist In Residence at The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.
“Liu performs with a confident grace that reveals an intuitive command of her instrument, and her versatile picking style ranges from a playful nimbleness to straight-up jamming.”
Liu released her debut jazz album “Introducing… Lisa Liu” on November 12th, 2019.
Liu has performed at the Django Reinhardt Festival (France), SiX The Musical on Broadway, The Music Center at Strathmore (MD), The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery(Washington DC), Academy of Music (MA), Peabody Essex Museum (MA), The Rubin Museum of Art (NYC), Joe’s Pub (NYC), Barbès (NYC), The Knockdown Center (NYC), and the Hill-Stead Museum (CT).
-Christa Titus/Billboard Magazine
Marceline Keene is a guitarist living in Bellingham, WA. She joined Café Impromptu Women in Jazz in 2022, is a guitarist for Nuages in Bellingham and plays with Lulu Swing out of Seattle.
Marceline was on the main stage at the 2023 Whidbey Island Guitar Festival at Whidbey Island Center of the Arts, and performed with Nuages on the WICA Main Stage for DjangofestNW ’23.
Christi Lao is a guitarist, singer-songwriter, and music teacher based out of Los Angeles, CA. Christi recently released her eclectic debut solo album titled “It’s About Time”, which features all original music and can be found on most streaming platforms. She is a founding member of the all-female swing revival band “She Sings She Swings”, who is set to release their debut album entitled “Meet You On 4th Street” by Fall of 2022.
Christi has also performed with various jazz and swing bands such as Hedgehog Swing, Vignes Rooftop Revival, Café Impromptu, and as a solo artist at notable venues such as Downtown Disney, House of Blues, The Grammy Museum, and various music festivals.
Christi aspires to share her love of swing and gypsy jazz in order to enrich the lives of others and hopefully inspire the next generation of musicians to keep the swing tradition alive.
Janna Kushneryk started out as a classically trained violinist, but is having way too much fun performing other genres of music from punk and Irish to Rock and Swing Jazz. Her eclectic taste in music has inspired her musical journey and she’s loving learning new ways to play and meeting great folks to make music with along the way. She is a graphic designer by day, passionate musician by night and performs with “Byron Street Swing” as well as with the Black Rose Irish folk rock band, Issaquah Philharmonic, and Seattle Rock Orchestra.
Café Impromptu Special Guests :
Roz Honeydew has quite a colorful past as an actress and singer who owned a Jazz Club in a coastal town in South East England. She moved up to London in the early 60’s and became part of a Country and Western Duo singing in many of London’s West End clubs as well as working as an actress in Film and Television.
Roz has been singing on Whidbey Island since 2017 when she made this her new home.
Cellist Siri Bardarson is a Seattle native who left the classical world for popular music in Seattle’s live music scene in the 1970’s and 80’s. She has performed at Bumbershoot, Bite of Seattle, EXPO, Seattle Folklife Festival, Hot Jazz Port Townsend and the Bellevue Jazz Festival plus many clubs. Recently, she has incorporated pop cello and vocals in a contemporary format and has performed at many Whidbey Island venues. She plays with the Alder String Quartet. Her creative life is inspired by her beloved Whidbey Island, WA.
Sarah Yates is a double bassist whose playing has been described as elegant, understated, and driving. She performs regularly in northwest Washington state with the groups Nuages, The Unknowns, and MANtrio, and has performed in festivals and concert series including Earshot’s Jazz: the Second Century, Wayward in Limbo, Manouche N.W., Racer Sessions, and DjangoFest NW. While specializing in the music of Django Reinhardt, Sarah’s experience ranges from trad jazz to hard bop and big band to free improvisation. She holds a degree in music history, which culminated in her thesis, “Django’s Reverie: Reinhardt and Debussy as Symbols of French Identity.”
History of Café Impromptu:
It was a late night Gypsy jazz jam during DjangofestNW 2014. Looking around I saw over a dozen women in the jam. We sang- played- and got to know one another. These were the inspirations. I decided to create Café Impromptu the next year.
Café Impromptu, is a ‘pop up’ ensemble where female musicians who share an interest in swing, jazz, musette and the genre of Django Reinhardt’s music, can play and perform together. In September of 2015, Kristi O’Donnell with Irene Ypenburg, Siri Bardarson and friends formed the first Café Impromptu. Café Impromptu, in its various forms and locations, has continued this tradition every year 2014-2023. (sans 2020).
In 2021, nearly 20 women participated in Cafe Impromptu’s outdoor concert days at Double Bluff Brewing Company, Langley WA, during Djangofest NW. The seating was at capacity, with hundreds of music loving on-lookers standing in the back-way alleys of Langley, WA. We represent the “Women in Django” and tell some of the stories of the women of Django Reinhardt during his life time: the mothers, lovers, club owners and business women.
The enthusiasm of the musicians and the audience prompted Kristi to organize a formal band for a performance on April 23, 2022. Café Impromptu Quintet with Special Guests was born.
Café Impromptu 2022 features Pacific NW & West Coast Female Musicians who play in the style of Django Reinhardt. The fellas join in the fun after our sets.
