Leave it to Scandinavian Troels Jensen to deliver an album that sounds like it came from New Orleans’ French Quarter. Featuring vocalist Miriam Mandipira and a team of Michael Lee/g, Knut Henriksen/b, Tobias Leonardo Pederson/dr and a rotating sax team of Anders Gaarmand, Nis Toxsvaerd and Ole Himmelstrup, Jenson plays piano and uses his raspy voice to growl out pieces that swagger like a drunk on Bourbon Street on “I’ll Keep On Walking” while taking you to the delta with Lee’s guitar on the swampy “Ode to Blind Willie Johnson.”
Mandipira agonizes along with Gaardmand’s tenor solo on a piercing “Since I Fell For You” and gives a Sunday gospel feel to “I Need Somebody Bad.” Jensen honky tonks the ivories for Mandipira for a vaudevillian “Look the Way” and the band joins in with Lea Throlann’s voice for a Moose Lodge casual take of Willie Nelson’s “Night Life.” Crescent City via Copenhagen!