Doors at 7:30 pm; Cajun/Zydeco dance lesson with Cheryl McBride at 8:00 pm; Show at 8:30 pm

Tickets are $12 

Tonight we are reviving an old Ashkenaz tradition: Celebrating the birthday of the great Creole accordionist Danny Poullard (1937-2001), who was the guiding spirit for so many of us in the local Cajun/Zydeco music community. 

Danny Poullard influenced countless Cajun/Zydeco musicians in the Bay Area and beyond, including most of the people who will be playing tonight. In fact, Sauce Piquante was the final band to emerge from the training ground of his fabled garage jam sessions, and special guest Andrew Carriere played with him in the legendary California Cajun Orchestra. 

Blair Kilpatrick (of Sauce Piquante) and Andrew Carriere will be switching off on accordion, triangle, and vocals throughout the evening. The rest of the lineup includes fiddler Steve Tabak, guitarist-singer Jim Ruth, bassist-singer Kathy “KP” Price, along with drummer David Hymowitz, who also played many gigs with Poullard. 

You can’t get much more authentic than Andrew Carriere. A native of Southern Louisiana, the accordionist and singer brings a long family tradition into his playing. He performs regularly with his own band the Zydeco/Cajun Allstars, as well as with the Creole Belles, CZ & the Bon Vivants, the Wild Catahoulas, the Cajun Classics — and with Sauce Piquante.

Sauce Piquante has been playing for Bay Area dancers since 1999, when accordionist Blair Kilpatrick started the band. It was Danny Poullard who supplied the name and much of the inspiration. The group’s high-energy dance tunes and French vocals are rooted in two musical traditions: Cajun and old-time Creole, or, as some call it, early zydeco. Sauce Piquante strives to capture the authentic sound of southern Louisiana’s dance halls, house parties, and church dances while appealing to a contemporary audience.

During more than two decades of Louisiana travels and music camp attendance, band members have been influenced by many other gifted musicians. They have learned from Creole masters (Bois Sec Ardoin, Delton Broussard, Canray Fontenot, Edward Poullard) and legendary Cajun accordionists (Steve Riley, Jesse Lége, Eddie LeJeune, Sheryl Cormier). The band’s debut recording “Sauce Piquante Live” got a thumbs-up in a Dirty Linen magazine review. Kilpatrick is also the author of “Accordion Dreams” (University Press of Mississippi, 2009), which documents her musical journey, including her time with Danny Poullard. She and her husband Tabak were among the musicians profiled in “Zydeco Nation,” a recent public radio documentary about the Louisiana Creole migration to Northern California.