Ladies and gentlemen, meet Velvet Caravan

The band kicking off Ocala's second Levitt AMP Music Series on Friday night has been known to play some cover tunes.

Pluck around YouTube and you'll find Velvet Caravan performing Gloria Gaynor's 1978 disco anthem "I Will Survive." Click over to Spotify and hear "Over the Rainbow." While performing with an orchestra once, "Smoke on the Water" rolled off the stage. 

It's all fun and games when this instrumental quintet plays around with pop-rock covers, but the real fun is Velvet Caravan's bread and butter: gypsy jazz. Based in Savannah, Georgia, this band revels in the swing style of violinist Stéphane Grappelli and guitarist Django Reinhardt from the days of Quintette du Hot Club de France.

Part of Levitt AMP's mission is to bring diverse acts through Ocala. Velvet Caravan fits that bill, as its sound has been shaped by many influences. Sure, this is swing-kissed gypsy jazz, but that genre is a collection of styles that evolved as the gypsy caravans moved from place to place, culture to culture.

To offer more insight into what makes Velvet Caravan roll, here is a Q&A with the band's piano/accordion player, Jared Hall.

Question: So what's a nice accordion player like you doing in a gypsy jazz band?

Answer: (Laughs) Years ago, I went over to France and Belgium and heard some of this music for the first time. I went away from that experience thinking, "Aw! I loved that music." I loved how it takes you into that cafe, it takes you into that feeling of sipping on wine.

I never really got into it professionally at that point. I was playing a Hammond organ or a piano with Americana bands and some jazz groups. Then, when we moved to Savannah, my wife and I ended up falling in with Ricardo Ochoa, who plays the violin, and our original guitar player, Sasha Strunjas from Serbia, who was the catalyst for all the Django stuff. All of this naturally started falling into place at this restaurant in Savannah and it just kind of turned into this project.

It's been an eye-opening experience for me because I'm just brought back to that place in Belgium 10 years ago.

Q: What kind of music were you brought up on?

A: I was brought up on a little of everything. I grew up in the Midwest. I was doing a lot of Jerry Lee Lewis and that boogie-woogie-blues kind of stuff. I ended up studying music in college, so I did a lot of classical. On the classical side of things, I was always drawn to jazzier composers — Debussy or Ravel or Erik Satie. It was always a focus of mine to be in that jazz world.

Q: Where does Velvet Caravan play these days?

A: A little bit of everywhere. We really work well in music festivals, but you'll also find us in a small club. We seem to do a lot of theaters that are set up in that cabaret style. Small round tables, drinks and food items — that listening-room experience, so to speak. We've done that South By Southwest crazy stage all the way to the Iridium in New York City to a nice festival like you guys have.

Q: Who is in your audience?

A: It's a wide variety. We have a lot of young kids who are really into this music all the way to retirees. We have jazz aficionados. It's the kind of music that is accessible to a variety of people. I have even had some punk rockers interested in it. It's just the kind of music that can speak to a lot of people.

We do a lot of fun things with the music, too. We'll do some traditional gypsy-jazz tunes, but we also try to take some popular tunes and incorporate them. We did a big thing with an orchestra; we had our tunes arranged for orchestra and did a big performance. We even had the orchestra do a "Smoke on the Water" ending. We try to knock some things around like that and have some fun with it.

Q: What's with the name of the band?

A: Obviously, you sense a little bit of the caravan from the gypsy-jazz part of it. We're not doing traditional gypsy jazz, we're not emulating exactly what the Quintette du Hot Club de France was doing. But we're bringing a lot of that influence in and then trying to cross genres here and there when we can. When gypsy jazz first started, as the gypsies moved from India and all the way up and through Europe, they were basically taking with them influences of that culture and then influencing other people in other regions.

That's kind of where the caravan idea came from — the musical crossovers. We're constantly trying to be influenced by a number of musicians. We're moving and trying to absorb what we can, different cultures and musical styles.

And then the velvet was just that idea of something very soft and loving and caring. Something you would not expect necessarily with a caravan.

Q: What can we expect when you perform in Ocala?

A: A lot of high energy. A lot of fun. We're going to give you a little bit of the Django and Grappelli experience, take you on another adventure with some good swing.

Levitt AMP Ocala Music Series

What: Velvet Caravan will headline. Ocala's Left on Broadway will open. Bring lawn chairs or blankets.

When: 6 p.m. Friday

Where: Webb Field, next to the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreational Complex, 1501 W. Silver Springs Blvd., Ocala.

Admission: Free  (concerts.levittamp.org/ocala)