Picture yourself, if you will, sipping an espresso at a sidewalk cafe along some tree-lined Parisian boulevard. Or maybe you're catching the heat at a St. Louis dancehall. Perhaps it's a ritzy cocktail lounge in New York— the kind where the lights are low and the drinks are high.

Before you know it, your feet are keeping time and there's a grin on your kisser. What's that melody? You'd swear on a stack of bibles you've heard it somewhere before, but where? And who's that outfit making all the racket?

The Au Contraires, that's who—a Bay Area acoustic swing quartet serving up the sounds on accordion, guitars, vocals, and upright bass, with a little hocus-pocus thrown in for good measure. You'll catch notes of Fats Waller, Billie Holiday, Django Reinhardt, Duke Ellington. You're feeling aces. Everything's copacetic, Jake. And brother, you want to hear more.