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Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby? – The J Street Jumpers

Wildchild! From Mapleshade
SQ Issue:  Spring 1999 - Volume 9, Issue 2

The J Street Jumpers are:

Charlie Hubel: tenor, bari - Steve Shaw: trombone - Adam Friedmann: bass - Don Lerman: alto, tenor, bari, clarinet Arthur Gerstein: piano, vocals - Jeff Lodsun: drums - Vince McCool: trumpet - Rusty Bogart: electric guitar - Marianna Previti: vocals

The J Street Jumpers have spent the last 10 years honing their chops in clubs, halls and ballrooms across the mid-Atlantic. Now their brand of obscure ‘30’s music mixed with great jump blues tunes has been released for all you hepcats.

I’m here to give you the skinny. This CD has 16 tracks of mostly great tunes. The most recognizable tunes include Jump, Jive, and Wail and the title track. This very swingable CD includes great lindy tempos on tunes like That’s How I Feel About You and Sure Had A Wonderful Time Last Night, the latter with fun lyrics which allow for playful moves. The lindy tempos are not limited to just these two songs. In fact, the average Lindy Hopper is going to find themselves on the wood quite a bit with this CD.

If you prefer East Coast, there are some good quick tempos that keep your feet busy like Onion, which has a great big band sound to it or Jump, Jive, and Wail. There are really only about three songs that are too slow for either the 6- or 8-count connoisseur.

Don’t be nervous when you cue this disc up. The first song, Better Beware, is not an indication of where this disc is going. Its weak vocals may scare you off but the rest of the songs make up for it. Their cover of Jump, Jive, and Wail will never outshine the immortal Louis Prima or even Brian Setzer, but it isn’t too bad.

After swingin’ through this disc, you get a chance to pull your favorite partner close for a nice slow, romantic ballad, At Last, to cool down before changing discsl

Bottom Line: To buy or not to buy…..BUY. Here’s how: