I don't know about anybody else but I've always found tubas to be a humorous instrument that I have a hard time taking seriously. I can't help but visualize cartoon characters falling on their faces, or ending up splattered against a wall when I hear one being played. Given the fact that tuba is featured on Crazy Rhythm, I wondered if I would be able to take the music seriously. It's one thing to have the tuba buried in the mix under six or seven other instruments, and another all together to have it on equal footing with the saxophone and banjo.

Well I needn't have worried about that too much, because as far as I can tell this isn't music that you're supposed to get too serious about. It's all about having a really good time and trying to make the music as enjoyable as possible. These four gentlemen are masters at doing just that. Even old chestnuts like "I Would Do Anything For You" sound fresh when played by these guys, and you can't help but be carried along by their enthusiasm for material and for the music.

It's easy to dismiss this style of jazz as simplistic or lightweight compared to the more sophisticated stuff we're used to hearing played by "modern" players. But listen to what these four men are doing and you realize that the sound is deceptive. Sure it follows along in a linear line with no real room for improvisations or extrapolations, but within that pattern they are executing some pretty fancy maneuvering.

Both bands, the original and today's version, have an infinite respect for the material and their instruments, and it shows in their performances. Even though the inclusion of "Darktown Strutters Ball" from the 1966 recording made me a little uncomfortable due to the connotations of its title, it's also a reality of this style of music's history that can't be ignored. Walbridge went a long way to offset that history in choosing to name the group Chicago Footwarmers. It was a deliberate homage to a pickup band made up of some of the best black players in 1920's Chicago; Johnny Dodds, Natty Cominique and Jimmy Blythe.

Mike Walbridge's Chicago Footwarmers don't play the most fashionable of Jazz music; in fact there are probably those who will sneer at it for it's simplicity. But this is the music that started it all way back when, and it's still a lot of fun to listen to. It's light-hearted, infectious, and good spirited - and there is nothing wrong with that no matter how you look at things.