BEBOP SPOKEN HERE
CD Review: Samoa Wilson w. Jim Kweskin Band – (I Just Want to be) Horizontal.
Dixon Line.
Bessie, Billie and Ella rub shoulders with The sons of the Pioneers, Something Smith and the Redheads – even Danny Kaye – who all inspired a lot of the material. Samoa also sings the verse to some not overworked standards. However, the most intriguing number is the title track originally recorded in 1946 by the Pat Flowers Band with vocal by Bunty Pendleton in what was, amazingly, her only known recording.
Samoa Wilson has the ideal voice for it – New Orleans meets Nashville in NYC. It’s raunchy and yet sultry on the ballads.
Leader Kweskin, 80-year-old when it was recorded and better known as the leader of a Jim Kweskin Jug Band, adds his own vocal chops to Samoa’s on a couple of numbers as well as playing rhythm guitar and some fingerpicking solos that were fingerpickin’ good!Mike Davis is a name familiar to those who attended last year’s Classic Jazz Party in the Village Inn and he’s equally impressive here. Lichtman has a lovely, fluid clarinet sound and Paloma Ohm plays alto with an almost Johnny Hodges-like grace. Drummer Brown, the blurb tells us, worked in his own band with Samoa for two years playing standards and torch songs in a mob joint in Boston, lighting up happy hour. But why am I singling out individuals? It’s a band that gels and all combine to make this an album that will appeal to fans of several different genres
Available June 12 (Kingswood Records, LLC).
Samoa Wilson (vocals); Jim Kweskin (vocals/rhythm guitar); Titus Vollmer (guitars/ukulele); Mike Davis (trumpet); Paloma Ohm (alto sax); Dennis Lichtman (clarinet/fiddle/mandolin/alto sax); Sonny Barbato (piano/accordion); Matthew Berlin (bass); Jeff Brown (drums) + Sean Read & Mattie Read Clarke (backing vocals on At Ebb Tide)
