I'm not going to be coy, and I'm not going to waste time making you wait to hear my opinion of Brian Setzer's newest effort, Wolfgang's Big Night Out. The album, a recent release on the Surfdogs label, is a glorious romp that suits my musical tastes in a way I've seldom encountered.
It's almost as if Setzer took a can opener to my head to see what was inside. (Now there's a scary thought.) Had he done so, he would have discovered my absolute love for updated, jazzed-up classics. It's a type of musical alchemy that's often been performed by musicians in the past, and Setzer's effort compares with some of the best, including my personal favorite, Glen Gray's Shall We Swing.
Setzer's own story is a fascinating one, and might help explain his eclectic musical tastes. Big band swing music is not new to him, but the musical beginnings for the New Yorker actually date back to the 1980's and his successful pop group, the Stray Cats. Setzer's strong guitar and the group's retro rockabilly sound became a big hit in Europe first, then in America, where they enjoyed several top ten hits.
Setzer has always been musically adventurous, and combining a love of old jazz with a continued exploration of his own musical talents led him on new paths in the years since his Stray Cats days. His musical odyssey eventually took him to swing, and he had Billboard charting success with a number of albums, culminating in his Grammy-winning Jump, Jive And Wail.
He's continued to be fascinated by the genre, and with Wolfgang's Big Night Out he's again drawing on his love of swing music, but has merged it with an assemblage of ageless and familiar classical pieces. The result is a listening experience that's impossible to resist.
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