Musician/producer Nicolay, one half of The Foreign Exchange, brings the jazz sounds of The Hot at Nights trio to Charlotte this Thursday, Jan. 26. (Photo by Tobias Rose.)

For a hot minute, it looked like The Foreign Exchange — the acclaimed hip-hop/soul duo made up of singer/rapper Phonte and musician/producer Nicolay — didn’t have a lot of love for Charlotte.

The fact is, even though the group is based in North Carolina (Durham to be exact), you didn’t often find them performing on Queen City stages.

“For me, I've just seen over the years that … you gotta be kind of scarce, because people take it for granted,” Phonte told me in August 2011. “They just really think: ‘Oh I can see him anytime.’”

But, on Sept. 10, 2011, FE ended its two-year absence from Charlotte by performing to a packed house at the Neighborhood Theatre.

Better still, this Thursday (Jan. 26) — a little more than five months since the last visit — the FE family is returning to our fair city; only this time, Nicolay is coming sans Phonte … and he’s bringing the jazz trio The Hot at Nights along for the ride. That said, audiences obviously shouldn’t come to the show expecting to hear an exact replica of The Foreign Exchange.

“The main difference really is that even though the music is written out and pre-composed, rehearsed and arranged, there’s a big factor of improvisation there,” said Nicolay. “The stuff I do … for The Foreign Exchange … it’s much more of a calculated process. In this situation, it’s all really about the moment.”

Nicolay’s association with The Hot at Nights (a crew consisting of Chris Boerner, Matt Douglas and Nick Baglio) came about in the summer of 2010. At the time, Boerner was working as a guitarist for FE’s live band.

When Nicolay discovered his fellow musician was starting a jazz trio, a team-up was an organic, and seemingly obvious, occurrence. The first step was hitting the studio and banging out some tunes — which turned out to be a new version of Nicolay’s jazz-influenced 2009 solo album “Shibuya.”

“I instantly took a liking to their music. When I was making a reality of my dreams of ever doing a jazz project — which is always something I wanted to do … the first material I grabbed for was [Shibuya],” Nicolay said. “[The Hot at Nights and I] ended up rearranging all the music together, all four of us. [Download that re-worked CD, “The Sibuya Session,” for free here.] That led to me starting a working relationship with them.”

In terms of expectations for this week’s Q.C. performance, Nicolay says this show is perfect for the city’s more progressive music fans.

“With this project … it’s a little more experimental. It’s instrumental, so there’s no vocals … that attracts a different cross-section,” he said. “People who like the more adventurous side of our music, they’ll definitely be in for a treat.”

$12 (in advance). 8 p.m. The Evening Muse, 3227 N. Davidson. 704-376-3737. www.theeveningmuse.com.

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