Trumpeter Danny Jonokuchi has a comfort zone in the vintage swing era. His most recent is actually an encore of Let Me Off Uptown (see below) featuring the girl next door vocals of Alexa Barchini on the cozy “In A Mellow Town”, upbeat “L-O-V-E” and duet with the leader as they parlay on “Just Squeeze”. For his part, Jonokuchi blows and swings hard on the fun Crescent City read of “Mahogany Hall Stomp” and Chris Lewis blowing a mean tenor on “One O’Clock Jump”. Gotta like an album that even includes the dancers!
Recorded a few years earlier Let Me Off also features Barchini, and she sounds very Ella -ish on “Smooth S ailing” and once again teams well with the leader on “Knock Knock”. The album here is a bit more R&Bish than swing, with Robert Edwards’ trombone plunging deeper than Kim Kardashian’s neckline on “Oh I’m Evil”. Jonokuchi has fun on “Let Me Off Uptown” and shows his penmanship on “Distracted By You”. A fun one, indeed.