Harmonious Wail Trio

americana · folk

Harmonious Wail is a Madison, Wisconsin trio playing Americana-infused Gypsy jazz that draws on Parisian hot club swing, Delta blues and American folk traditions. Mandolinist and vocalist Sims Delaney-Potthoff founded the group in Madison in 1987, originally as an instrumental quartet with guitarist John Cooper, violinist Chris Wagoner and bassist Laurie Lang. Delaney-Potthoff studied for seven years with the jazz mandolinist Jethro Burns and later at Berklee College of Music, and also plays a 1937 Gibson tenor guitar. Vocalist and percussionist Maggie Delaney-Potthoff joined around 1990 and reshaped the band by singing its instrumental melody lines; she comes from a dance and theatre background and uses a cardboard box played with brushes as her main percussion instrument. Bassist Jeffo Weiss, who plays upright and five-string electric bass, completed the current trio in 2011. The band began by covering Louis Jordan and Nat King Cole and moved toward Django Reinhardt-style Gypsy jazz after a 1994 European tour and an encounter with the Robin Nolan Quartet in Amsterdam. It has released ten recordings across nearly four decades, among them Airborne (1993), Gypsy Swing (2003), Bohemian Tango (2013), the seasonal collection Holiday Spirits (2014), Beyond the Pale (2020) and the live album Wailing Allstars (2022). The group founded the Midwest Gypsy Swing Fest, held twice a year in Madison, and set up the Henry Mac Fund in 2015 to support emerging musicians. Its honors include repeated Madison Area Music Awards for jazz album and jazz performer of the year, a 2017 Musicnotes award for outstanding musical career achievement, and 2025 Madison Area Music Association recognition as jazz performer and mandolinist of the year. Live sets mix instrumental hot-club playing with vocal features, and the trio often appears with a guest guitarist such as Scott Hlavenka.

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