The neo-swing boom was shorter than the original swing era, which, according to experts, lasted only as long as World War II did. Nothing so momentous accompanied the '90s explosion of zoot suits and horn sections, which may be why it sounds so empty of ideas. Big bands with "daddy" in their names, like Cherry Poppin' Daddies and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (playing in Harajuku on Sunday, by the way), sound OK until you compare them to a true original like Keely Smith, who at the age of 69 just released an album of reconfigured classics from her youth that not only blows away every under-40 hepcat presently honking away on either coast, but rocks harder than a lot of recent punk.
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| Royal Crown Revue |
The only revivalists that come close are the Royal Crown Revue, which makes sense since they prefigured the revival by a half-dozen years and will certainly survive it. Less interested in bobby-soxer spunk than Vegas cool, the seven-piece group blends style and chops in ways that recall the Rat Pack at its slimiest. Their own tunes are good, but it's their choice of covers that shows class. Louis Prima, Woody Herman and Duke Ellington figure prominently in their fake book, and their version of Johnny Mercer's "Something's Gotta Give" rivals Sammy Davis, Jr.'s original for sheer out-there professionalism.
Lead singer Eddie Nichols, who looks like a young John Glenn after having passed over the event horizon for jazzbos, is a bundle of macho purposefulness, gliding around the stage as if on skates, boxing with the air and illustrating the lyrics with a comprehensive vocabulary of hand gestures. Dance band that they are, RCR's main sales point isn't their musicianship or their arrangements or even their sense of humor. It's their endurance. They don't leave until you're passed out against your girlfriend or gasping in your martini.