It's 1999--are we still swingin'? As trends, fads, and revivals seem to come and go in the length of time it takes to ask how many Spice Girls are left, it's difficult to monitor the cultural temperature even if your thermometer is firmly rammed up the populace's rectum. Staggering drunk and battered from the ruins of the Hollywood Derby with my Zoot suit in tatters and my chain wallet dragging pathetically behind me, I decided to check out this advance relic of swing to come. Spin it, daddio!
The music is pleasant enough, but it is strictly swing-by-the-numbers, ready and eager to please and all set to pop up out of the Tomorrowland stage at Disneyland. The arrangements most likely woulda been considered Squaresville even in the '40s--Benny Goodman this ain't. Their update to '99 (besides the Reznor-ized distorto vocals of "Big And Bad") is the salsa-ized rendition of "I Wanna Be Just Like You" from The Jungle Book. This blends a little "Mambo #5" with Disney--way to go!
It's all here, some Cab Calloway-via-Betty Boop reference points in "Who's That Creepin'?," some jump-jive-flip-flop-fly in "Big Time Operator," even a swing hepcat version of "Ol' McDonald." ("And on this farm he had a chick...," you get the idea.) Look, modern swing can be fun, contemporary, well-arranged, and not completely reliant on a cartoon version of vintage America. Just ask the Royal Crown Revue or Brian Setzer.
All recordings written by S. Morris, courtesy of Interscope Records and Big Bad Voodoo Music (ASCAP).
