Story & Photographs by Diane Fleischman

Hot Bijouxx performed Saturday afternoon in the Allentown Art museum, in junction with the Allentown JazzFest, but with the careening accordion sounds you would swear you were seated outside at a café in France. 

The quartet; Najwa Parkins (vocals), Dallas Vietty (accordion), Ryan McNeely (acoustic guitar), and Kevin Ripley (drums), are native to Philadelphia and the Lehigh Valley. 

Parkins’s vocals ring clear as a bell on a cold winter’s morning, rich and smooth as silk, from the high notes to scat. While McNeely masters intricate guitar lines, Vietty transforms the accordion to sound more like a horn section at times. 

Hot Bijouxx interpretation of Prohibition-era jazz is sassy, bold, vulnerable, and downright romantic.

 

 

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