Bizarrely, they came from this Preservation Hall Jazz Band album: “Preservation: An album benefitting Preservation Hall and the Preservation Hall Music Outreach Program”. It’s a great album, and I had it on my ‘must play’ list for the weekend. I was pretty sure no one else would be DJing from it – and then they did! It’s such a fun album. I love Angelique Kidjo shouting her way through ‘La Vie En Rose’, but ‘Blue Skies’ (featuring Pete Seegar) is my favourite. After Andrew Bird doing ‘Shake It and Break It’, which I overplay here in Sydney.
I actually play quite a bit from this album, but the most-played songs on this album at MLX were ‘I Ain’t Got No Body’ (feat. Buddy Miller) and ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’ featuring Paolo Nutini. Nutini is, apparently, a famous pop singer (?). I like him because his vibrato reminds me of Putney Dandridge. I’m pretty sure other songs from the album popped up in other places.
It was really quite nice to hear all these songs in all sorts of sets. It’s actually not a bad thing when the most played songs at an exchange are from a fund-raising album by a living band, and a living band of such high calibre.
Here is a video about the album. If you hunt around you can find some great videos of the recording sessions for this album:
NB: I am a really big fan of the ‘American Legacies’ album they did with the Del McCoury Band (see another promotional video here) because it combines my current passion for string bands and bluegrass with hot jazz.
[Edit: Interestingly, Andrew Bird and the Pres Hall Band’s version of Shake It and Break It turned up at Snowball 2011 in Sweden this year in Nicolas and Mikaela’s performance.]