Customer Reviews

Dirty Boogie

5 star:		(164)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I've been a fan of Brian Setzer since his days with the stray cats, and I'm still a fan. This Cd is definitely a rocker and a swinger, his style stayed pretty much the same, I'll define it as orchestrated rockabilly. There's some good rockabilly stuff here like "This Cat's On A Hot Tin Roof", "The Dirty Boogie", "This Old House", his own remake of "Rock This Town", and "Switchblade 327". The boogie and jump tunes are just as great, he does an excellent job with Louis Prima's "Jump Jive An' Wail", a really great duet with Gwen Stefani from the group No Doubt called "You're The Boss", and his own treatment to the Lieber & Stoller tune "Nosey Joe", a nice twangy feel to the Skyliners hit "Since I Don't Have You", a credible version of Bobby Darin's "As Long As I'm Singin'", and a cool rendition of the instrumental hit "Sleepwalk". If you like rockabilly and some jump boogie give this disc a listen to.

This fantastic CD is the work of Brian Setzer. Until recently, Brian was most known for his work with the rockabilly band, the Stray Cats. However, Brian's first instrument was the euphonium, and he always dreamed of forming his own big band. Well, Brian had his chance, and who hasn't heard his smash-hit, Jump, Jive, An' Wail? This CD is a collection of thirteen of the Brian Setzer Band's best works, all harkening back to the age of Swing! Heck, there's even a Swing version of Rock This Town!

This is a great CD, one that will please anyone who likes that old and new Swing sound. I highly recommend it to you!

This is the best record of The Brian Setzer Orchestra! Jump Blues and Swing of course. Great! Cover "Jump, Jive, An' Wail" of Louis Prima is great, "You're the Boss" of Elvis/Ann Margret (Viva Las Vegas movie) is better than original (Gwen Stefani sings great), "As Long as I'm Singing" is an old Bobby Darin song, "This Cat's on a Hot Tin Roof", "The Dirty Boogie", "Let's Live It Up" and "Hollywood Nocturne" and "Switchblade 327" are his originals, while "Sleepwalk" (orig. Santo & Johnny), "Rock This Town" (orig. Stray Cats), "Since I Don't Have You" (orig. The Skyliners), "Nosey Joe" (orig. Bull Moose Jackson) are very good covers too.
Some excellent musicians are featured here (Tony Garnier - stand-up bass, Mark Winchester (ex. Planet Rockers) - stand-up bass and Eddie Nichols (Royal Crown Revue)-backing vocals). Brian Setzer is winning again!

...

Yes, the overall sound is sharp. I'll grant that most of the songs are not subtle. Having expressed those cautions, let me say that this is a wonderful album. The songs are great fun and played with excellent style and energy. This is a band with some real musical talent. Brian's guitar work is, as always, extraordinary. He is a seriously underrated guitarist.

There are songs on here that do have subtlety, especially "Hollywood Nocturn," "Since I Don't Have You," and "You're the Boss." "Sleepwalk" is absolutely stunning. But mostly it's an album designed to make you want to dance. By now, we've all heard "Jump, Jive an' Wail" but "As Long as I'm Singin'" and "Let's Live it Up" are incredible. Even the remake of "Rock This Town" is a lot of fun (although I prefer the original).

While I think "The Brian Setzer Orchestra" and "Guitar Slinger" are better overall (with "Guitar Slinger" being the best swing album I've ever heard since the days of Enoch Light), "The Dirty Boogie" is excellent. If you like swing, this is a great one to have.

One final note: if you ever get the chance to see Brian Setzer live -- GO! He is a fabulous intertainer.

I love this CD. It's not as good as my personal favorite Setzer Orchestra release, 'Guitar Slinger,' which I feel is their best release, but The Dirty Boogie holds its own. One too many rock-style numbers for me; I found that I mostly enjoyed the jazzier, more big-band style songs. I really like "Let's Live It Up;" it sounds like a Sinatra song, a whimsical fantasy. Plus, it has a really good intro (of course, the BSO has some of the best intro's I've ever heard). Though massively overplayed (I still don't like to listen to it because I've heard it enough times to supply me well into my hundreds), "Jump Jive an' Wail" is a catchy, if repetitive song. This version won a Grammy, and if you aren't sick of it, it's a really good song. One fun track is the outrageously sexy "You're the Boss," cut from the final print of Elvis flick 'Viva Las Vegas.' This risque eybrow-raiser, a duet between Setzer and singer Gwen Stefani, has a great arrangement. I love the melody, and the double-entendre lyrics are...well, let's just say they put pretty vivid pictures in your mind. Oddly enough, I'm not sure that I've ever heard the original "Rock This Town," but I'll tell you what, the arrangement offered here is a real winner. With a swinging intro (including a fantastic sax solo) that clocks in at about a minute-four, this is one of the album's best tracks. After all these years, the song is still cool, and the simple-yet-catchy melody leaves me humming time after time. Setzer does a wonderful job on fifties-jukebox-style "Since I Don't Have You." This song is one of the best examples of his smooth crooning voice. Liste for his ventures into falsetto range, particularly at the end. The polar opposite of this song follows in the form of the incredible "Switchblade 327," a track that's not for everyone but still stands tall as another of the disc's best. As can be seen here and on 'Guitar Slinger,' Setzer has an affinity for tense, fast, rough, guitar-riddled rock-style story-songs. Usually about a rebel of some sort, the subject usually meets a tererible fate at the end of the song. The underrated "Switchblade" is no exception. The high-octane intro immediately sets the mood for this song about a drinking, fighting, fast-driving hood. You can see the story in your mind, largely due to Setzer's descriptive lyrics. Good for a shock is the seemingly innocent "Nosey Joe," which really turns out to be much dirtier than "You're the Boss," and not as much fun. It may take you a couple of listens (Lord knows it did for me, but I'm slow sometimes), but you'll figure it out. The album ties itself up nicely with a very pleasant cover of the great Bobby Darin's "As Long as I'm Singin'." good vocals and scatting by Setzer here as well, and a really good arrangement, I love when it takes on a Latin beat at the end. If you keep listening after the song ends, you'll hear Setzer yell "Mambo!" and the band resume the rhythm for a wild, but unfortunately short, jam session that morphs into "Tequila." You'll have to listen carefully for that, though, as the mambo add-on is less than a minute long. I've saved the best for last here. The greatest tracks on this CD are the classic "Sleepwalk" and Setzer's own "Hollywood Nocturne." Nocturne, done with a sort of cha-cha beat, is another story song. However vague, it tells of an elegantly-dressed man from another time who stands outside of a lounge calling your name in the night. I think the vagueness plays a large part in making the lyrics so good. Perhaps the best thing about this song is that, to aid the whole 'man from another time' bit, Setzer's voice is 'fogged,' making it sound almost as if he's singing through a pipe, or, effectively, through time. It's a very cool and oddly creepy effect. The intro here is notably excellent, with guitar and saxophone dueting the haunting melody. The musical interlude is fine, smooth, and sexy, and the whole song makes one think what a potentially great theme song this could be. Quite possibly the most underrated and overlooked song on the whole album, this one is really worth a listen. "Sleepwalk," that most enduring of fifties' classics (originally recorder by Santo and Johnny), gets an exquisitely beautiful treatment here. The sparkling arrangement can do no wrong. Setzer shows just how amazing a guitar player he is here, punctuating the song with his bluesy riffs, which only seem to enhance the whole thing. The band shines here also, most notably the brass. At 2:09 into the song, the saxes, then the brass, come swirling in for a short, but shimmering, moment that is the climax of the song (and my favorite part). I am also especially fond of the end, where the guitar takes on an echo effect for a few seconds and then, almost reluctantly and with a heartbroken sound as if it doesn't want to let go, plays the last notes. Is it just me, or is this track the perfect school dance song? That's the image I always get from it, anyway. Anyhow, this song deserves every bit of the Grammy it won, and is the crown jewel of this CD. If you haven't heard the CD, buy it--you'll love it!

Ooh I love sipin' my martini and lounging on my retro 1940's loveseat, in my vintage 1930's silk gown in my retro 1920's California bungalow house, while playing this classic rockabilly big band cd. the duet with my fellow retro girl Gwen Stefani is exellent. I can't throw one of my famous cocktail parties without thowing this cd on the aound system(along with some emmett Miller and Leon Redbone, and maybe some Ruth etting). This cd is not only a good companion for drinking piank champaigne, it's alos good for smoking ciagrs, and dancing elegantly across my hardwood floors, ah this cd is a classic! Yuo simply must own it dahhling...

I've avidly followed Brian Setzer's career since 1981 and with his album he has produced a near-masterpiece. Other artists have tried to reinvent or popularize swing music, but no one has come close to the driving arrangements and brilliant musicianship displayed by Setzer and his band on this disc.

Every instrumental song is catchy, upbeat and fun to listen to. My only small criticism are the vocal arrangements (Brian's voice is not Sinatra, after all), but this doesn't compromise the brilliance of this album. Most people consider "Jump, Jive, An' Wail" the premiere offering, but there are five other songs equally as amazing. His integration of electric guitar with traditional swing instruments seems effortless.

Brian Setzer has reintroduced this wonderful genre of music to a whole new crowd. This is a marvelous album with great arrangements and musicianship. You will love it.

This CD is awesome - just listen to the first or last tracks (and almost anything in between!) Listen to it, now THAT'S brass! This Cat's on a Hot Tin Roof is amazing to start with, it'll jump start ANY Monday! The Dirty Boogie (the track) utilizes percussion, along with the guitar {and, yes, brass, the only fault I found was slight feedback near 2:25 in the song}. This Old House was good, but not great - it feels a tad too much like rock, not swing, but provides a great mix to the CD. Let's Live it Up is one of the best songs on the CD. Sleepwalk provides balance to the CD, not every track should be played Presto, although I think the only instrumental track should be quicker than this. Jump Jive and Wail -- great song, just they overplayed it a little on the radio, put some This Cat's on a Hot Tin Roof or As Long as I'm Singin' in it's place some of the time [GO BRASS!!!]. Nice touch with You're the Boss, the solo at the beginning, and the brass arpeggios in between lyrics. Rock this Town, a great song especially with it's instrumental part in the beginning. Since I Don't Have You, in analogy with the CD being a long song, would be the "Bridge" of the CD. In Switchblade 327, the lyrics and the instrumental responses were thoughtfully perfectly balanced. Nosey Joe provides the comedy in this CD - every CD should have a track like this! Hollywood Nocturne some say wasn't as good as it should be, but it helps provide contrast to Nosey Joe and the next song - it lets the listener think about the rest of the tracks (with it's smooth sax responses) and get prepared for the final track. As Long as I'm Singin' was a great track - they could make a whole CD out of songs like this, This Cat's On a Hot Tin Roof, and Jump Jive an' Wail. Tell anyone who doesn't like this song at first to listen to the solos, especially those on As Long as I'm Singin'! Setzer should continue making CDs like this one!

A long time fan of Brian Setzer, this album is one of the most fabulous works out on the market. The combination of his 15 piece band and his VERY electric guitar are increadible. "Let's Liv it up" and "Jump, Jive, and Wail" are songs that infect your legs and your fingers to start moving and snapping. And "Hollywood Nocturne" brings one back to that 40's Film Noir feel. And after seeing Brian's "Dirty Boogie Tour" in concert, I am convinced that this man was born to make great music. One could even see during the MTV video music awards how he was rockin' the house. Even though I like Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, I dont think that their sound quality, soloists, AND their Lead Singer, Scottie, can even begin to compare to the rich swingin' sound of The Brian Setzer Orchestra. And for the man from Amazon.com who wrote the review on this album, don't take out your personal problems on quality music like this, buddy. And get some real taste, will ya. Hear's what it comes down to folks, I don't even bother with the garbage on the radio. You know why? Because when it comes to the Brian Setzer Orchestra....there's no competion.

This is another one of my favorite CDs of all time. It features a rockin' big band with a band leader who plays smokin' hot rockabilly guitar on a big, fat Gretsch, and sings with an energy to match his stellar playing. It doesn't get any better than that! Every song is good: "This Cat's On A Hot Tin Roof", "The Dirty Boogie", "This Old House", "Let's Live It Up", "Sleepwalk" (this version being one of my favorite songs of all time), "Jump, Jive, An' Wail", "You're The Boss" (featuring the sultry vocals of Gwen Stefani), "Rock This Town" (the Stray Cats' classic, with the big band), "Since I Don't Have You", "Switchblade", "Nosey Joe", "Hollywood Nocturne", and "As Long As I'm Singin'".

I remember hearing "Jump, Jive, An' Wail", on Top 40 radio, thinkin' "No way! A Top 40 song with a smokin' hot rockabilly guitar lead!" That's rare.

But, what's also rare is Brian Setzer. He can make anything sound good, as evidenced by this CD, the Stray Cats, his solo CDs, and the BSO Christmas CDs. And, his live shows are always a real treat for longtime fans and those new to his music.