Customer Reviews

All Aboard

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

What a delicious collection of music this treat is! Dynamic & danceable throughout. This is Neo-Swing @ its finest. Looking for that special something that is `all meat & potatoes'? Tired of the ` kibbles & bits' so prevalent in the releases of recorded music? (Usually one purchases a CD, & gets 2 or 3 nice pieces, & the rest is filler). This collection is easy to dance to, vibrant & happy, or steamy & sensual. Exciting music, so alive w/ lots of fun breaks, runs, & accents- emphasizing horns & a stride/jazz woogie/boogie woogie piano. Harmonies delicately blending in and out to unquestionably quantify their musicality understanding. Then, there is Johnny Boyd.... Johnny Boyd IS the vocals that are very smooth, about as smooth as you can get them. He repeatedly exercises that special & velvety sound- melting in that extra smoothness, almost as if they were built for swing music. Watch out for those saxophone accents, you can almost see them building!!! I have memorized all the breaks & accents & a better collection of music is far & few between. In regards to dancing- This IS Lindy Hop & East Coast Swing, with a tempo (I'd say is 100-160ish BPM). In closing, there are very few pieces of music I would classify as a `gotta have', but this is a true gotta have. Okay, don't/can't dance? Fine. It's all GOOD!! The lyrics of this album SWING of Beauty, Hope, Life & its flavor and passion that sums up what both life and love are about...good times, regrets, fun, and more fun! "Regular Joe" & "How Lucky...," just the titles alone, sums up what this whole disc is about and the good things that happen to regular people (Oh, what a dance number!!!!). `How Lucky Can One Guy Be', often brings me sunny days when the clouds of life overcast my views of things. Graciously Yours, Steven R. Mashin- Oregon City, Oregon.

This is the second album from the San Francisco based swing sextet, featuring their new line-up (permanent guitarist, and a new drummer and upright bass player). Although I miss some of the more energeic covers that graced their first album, this is still a teriffic effort, with original standouts "Regular Joe" (played with the Bill Elliot Swing Orchestra) "What's the Matter Baby" and "How Lucky." And they finally found a space for their perennial personal number, "Baron Plays the Horses," written about their sax player (the musical backbone of the band). Johnny Boyd still has the best singing voice in swing jazz, embarassing just about every other band's front man -- just compare him to the intolerable screech of "Cherry Poppin's Daddies" and you'll realize what a sublime pleasure a practiced, unified jazz band can be.

This CD is a blast. The songs are catchy and infectious. I regret not hearing these guys when they were together. If you want a good, bubbly album that doesn't have one bad song on it...this is it. I would compare their style more to the Louie Jordan school.....almost a bridge between traditional swing and early rock/boogie woogie styles. I can even hear a catchy ska sound on some of the tracks. Fantastic album.

I am a huge fan of music in general and can trivialize with the best of you. This is one of the most solid discs I own, from track number one all the way to the end. A few slower rythmical and highly danceable love ballads, a few fast dance double steps and a whole lot of serious big band sounds. What a sleeper treasure. If you love the swing era and love big band sounds this disc will become a main stay for all of you. My favorites are How Lucky Can One Guy Be, Way We Ought To Be, I'm Glad I'm Not Dead, and Memory Of You, one of the sweetest little songs of all time. Buy it or don't. It's your loss if you don't.

Indigo Swing have that fantastic '40's style jump jive for the '90's. It is not an easy task to be able to re-create a sound, a feel, or the atmosphere of a swing band which was so popular back in the 1940's. Indigo Swing do this so well. "All Abroad", their first CD, is a pleasing & refreshing change from the modern hum-drum. Indigo Swing, a present step in into the past.....guys, you do it so well. Great musicians of whom compliment each other which makes the whole thing work. My favorite tracks? They are all good, & get better the more I play the CD. 'Baron Plays The Horses' is a great track. Keep swingin' you guys. It's about time that music like this came back.

I consider this CD to be one of the essentials for contemporary swing. We end up plyaing something off this CD every week at our local club. Nice traditional big band sound, with just a touch of modern swing thrown in. Just a plain out fun CD for dancing some Lindy.

To those hepcats who dislike Johnny Boyd - whaddaya, tone deaf or somethin'? Boyd's high, ultra smooth, sweet and reedy tenor is the real article, propelling Indigo Swing to the top of 1990s swing bands. Whether crooning soulfully on the lovely "Memory of You" or rocking on "Blue Suit Boogie" and "What's the Matter Baby", Boyd effortlessly finds the right pitch to put the tune across, musically and emotionally. He's given superb support from his bandmates, notably sax player Baron Shul (nicely tooting quotes from "Louise" and "It Don't Mean a Thing" into his line on "That's Where My Money Goes") and pianist William Beatty, whose white hot boggie woogie licks ignited several tracks on IS's self-titled first album. What's more, ALL ABOARD! contains some of the catchiest songwriting in ages, with several tunes sounding like lost numbers from Broadway shows that never were; "Regular Joe", with its simple lyrics and tasty muted horns (courtesy of the Bill Elliot Swing Orchestra), builds to a show stopping finale, and "Baron Plays the Horses" could easily have slipped out of a GUYS AND DOLLS era musical. Unlike other swing bands' material - i.e. Cherry Poppin' Daddies' fun but ultimately monotonous, over-pumped numbers - IS's music displays humor without derailing into period-flavored camp. ALL ABOARD!'s diverse set of catchy tunes, sung with grace, wit and style by Boyd and tightly played by the band, insures it will be played long after the current swing fad has gone the way of the original Penn Station.

Jump blues and boogie woogie. Very nice! The first album of Indigo Swing. Only one song ("Regular Joe")with big band sound. It was arranged by Bill Elliott of Bill Elliott Sing Orchestra. William Beatty and Johnny Boyd wrote most of the songs except "Violent Love" (very nice cover of Willie Dixon's song) and instrumental "Hot in Harlem".

Along with Squirrel Nut Zippers Hot, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's self titled Capital cd, Lavay smith's One Hour Mama, and Eddie Reed's Hollywood Jump, thsi is one of teh most essential cd's to come out of teh neo-swing movement. Warm & friendly vocals by Johnny Boyd, and great boogie woogie piano solos. This six piece band really jumps, and is a favorite among swing dancers everywhere. The cd is not all at a breakneck fast tempo like Brian Setzer's, in fact it's more smooth yet rhythmic, like Royal Crown Reviews stuff. This is a great cd, and it is a landmark, showing that in the late 90's music could be both swinging, creative, danceable and popular at the same time!!! A classic all the way thru.

For listening or dancing, you'd be hard pressed to find a better swing CD. Boyd's smooth vocals are incredible and there are some great original numbers here. I could listen to this CD all day and dance to it all night without getting tired of it!