Sims Delaney-Potthoff may be Madison’s only gypsy jazz mandolin player. He might also be this city’s hippest 50-something musician.

Clad in red Chuck Taylors and cargo pants, he has both the look and energy of a younger man. Interestingly, Delaney-Potthoff gets his youthful vitality from a relatively old genre of music. Delaney-Potthoff plays in the Madison band, Harmonious Wail and is also the organizer of the Midwinter Midwest Gypsy Swing Festival, which brings an eclectic batch of artists to perform for a relatively small crowd.

This weekend will be the third year that festival puts on a winter showcase at the Brink Lodge in Madison. Gypsy jazz or gypsy swing combines the sounds of jazz with the rhythm and instrumentation of gypsy music. The music got its start in Europe and was popularized by Django Rheinhardt, a gypsy musician born in Belgium who happens to be the inspiration behind Harmonious Wail.

“The sound of gypsy rhythm is ‘le pompe.’ It sounds like a jazz high hat,” Delaney-Potthoff says before imitating the sound of a high hat in perfect rhythm. “They play it on a guitar. When it’s played by a European, it’s got this really specific kind of bounce to it.”

Few bands play gypsy jazz. Rarer still is the elusive gypsy jazz mandolin player, like Delaney Potthoff. Many people have not even heard of this genre. While gypsy jazz may be on the more obscure end of the music spectrum, Delaney-Potthoff says that anyone with a true appreciation for music will enjoy it.

In reference to the kind of crowd the festival draws, the musician says that the crowd is varied. “Well, there’s one couple from Milwaukee. They’re seventy or 80-year-old hipsters. They come all the time. They dig jazz, man,” he said. “Then there’s guys who are 22 and they say, ‘those guys are shredding!'”

Although the Wail is based out of Madison, the other bands coming to the festival are coming from Chicago and elsewhere in the Midwest, so it is a good opportunity to see a variety of artists in one locale, the mandolinist says.

“These guys are…can I say fucking great”? he says in reference to the other bands coming to the festival. “It puts your hair on end.”

He also says that what makes the music so great is its accessibility. Unlike other jazz, which is often viewed as high-brow, he says this music is more down to earth and about raw energy. It is even experimental, he says, adding that they sometimes use drum brushes on a cardboard box to create sound.

Delaney-Potthoff has been playing this sort of music for about 25 years, and he makes it clear that he is not about to stop anytime soon.

“If this band dissolved, I’d start another just like it,” he says.

Harmonious Wail will be playing in the Midwest Midwinter Gypsy Swing Festival tonight and Saturday night at the Brink Lounge. Theshow starts at 7:30 tonight and 7:00 Saturday night. Tickets are $20 in advance or $25 at the door. For more infomation, go to www.midwestgypsyswingfest.com.