When my father was growing up, big band jazz and swing music were considered major taboos. The wild rhythms of a multitude of brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments drove older people to distraction, wondering if the sultry dances that resulted from such rhythms would corrupt their teenage children forever. So when swing music re-emerged in the late 1990s, it was hard to know how young people of that day would respond. It’s not usually cool to like anything your parents or grandparents dug when they were kids.
Thankfully, the comeback of swing music brought back a lot of what was right about The Greatest Generation’s taste in music, and the form still attracts a huge following to this day. One of the groups that continues to do immense justice to the form is Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band, which features a number of well known jazz recording artists including vocalist Dianne Reeves, Eric Marienthal, Sal Lozano, Wayne Bergeron, and Grant Geissman. On this album, pop saxophonist extraordinaire David Sanborn sits in on a cover of “Play That Funky Music White Boy”.
The Phat Pack, their newest album, is a tribute to Mafia-era Las Vegas, where similar bands backed up crooners such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. Musically, The Phat Band is like a combination of the sounds produced by The Count Basie and Duke Ellington orchestras with some targeted spoofs of Warner Brothers cartoon composer Carl Stallings mixed in for fun. Throughout, Goodwin's upbeat arrangements display a tremendous flair for the full-bodied sound inherent in big band music. The first track, “Cut n’ Run”, is a grand piece featuring some great competitive play between the horn sections and the guitarists. The second piece, a cover of jazz composer Bock’s “Too Close for Comfort”, is a silky smooth piece which singer Reeves delightfully burns up in a fashion similar to Sarah Vaughan. “Count Bubba’s Revenge” takes on Basie head on, as Goodwin and the group swing and sway with the colorful tones that made Basie’s work such a pleasure to encounter.
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