The Ed Palermo Big Band: The Great Un-American Songbook Vol. III

Ed Palermo keeps playing a winning hand, taking on tunes from the 60s and 70s British Invasion and giving them a modern jazz feel, even recording the session in the  legendary Abbey Road Studios. The band rocks the swingers, and swings the rockers, with ringers Bruce McDaniel and Katie Jacoby being spotlighted on guitar, sitar and vocals for the former and violin on the latter. McDaniel sounds a bit like Procol Harum’s Gary Brooker, so he fits in well on pieces such as “A Salty Dog” as well as a swinging take with Jacoby on Jethro Tull’s “Nothing Is Easy”. Jacoby is winsome on the vaudevillian read of Frank Zappa’s “Let’s Move To Cleveland” and the sitar fits in well to the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Within You Without You” while the rhythm team goes chicka boom for “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!”. Deep grooves are dug on Traffic’s famous  “Glad”, showing that the first rockers were taught by swingers.

www.palermobigband.com

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