“There will be many different album releases in 2022; different, yes, but none better.”
Put on your dancing shoes people, the Blue Moon Marquee is back with another riveting album that will make you jump and shout, or, as the title accurately implies. Scream, Holler & Howl.
Blue Moon Marquee is a Canadian duo that delivers first-class vintage, sophisticated, jazz-tinged swing and jump blues. This is the fifth album by A. W. Cardinal (vocals/ guitar) and Jasmine Colette a.k.a Badlands Jass (vocals / upright bass / drums). Cardinal is a stylish, eloquent guitarist in the jazzy tradition of T-Bone Walker and Pee Wee Crayton, who sings in a raspy deep tenor reminiscent of somewhere between Tom Waits and Chuck E. Weiss. Notably, Cardinal was nominated for Indigenous Songwriter of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards for the album Bare Knuckles and Brawn. Colette is a lovely, honey-voiced, sultry singer and a swift, versatile bassist. Together they make a potent duo with refined musical taste and boundless virtuosity in the foundational blues genres, with a strong backbeat groove and wailing, swinging horns.
Scream, Holler & Howl is a joyous musical pleasure co-produced by their stylistic cohorts and musical soulmates Duke Robillard and Erik Nielsen. In our time of cold, modern digital recording practices and computerized music productions, this refreshing album has an old-fashioned, natural retro feel-hot music made by real humans with truehearted, impassionate feeling, recorded live to tape. They brought along a swift, kickass full band featuring some of Canada's finest veteran players: Darcy Phillips (Jann Arden) on piano and Hammond organ and the fierce Jerry Cook (Colin James) on tenor and baritone saxophone. Other guest musicians include Matt Pease on drums, Paul Pigat on guitar, and Bonnie Northgraves on trumpet.
This hard-driving album of 13 prime cuts packs a spellbinding combination of smooth-groove, uptown, showboat-lounge instrumentation as you might have heard it in the golden era of the blues, with tinges of Roma jazz (in a less-enlightened age referred to as Gypsy jazz). You'll hear musical moments that could fit to Cab Calloway, Amos Milburn, or Roy Milton, and also jazz-influenced modern players like Duke Robillard and Ronnie Earl. They included two cuts by Lonnie Johnson, Another Night to Cry and Long Black Train. All other songs are originals, and all are of a musical form that played a significant role in the evolution of jazz, rock'n' roll, and rhythm and blues.
The masterful and totally fun album is both refined and consistent, with every song done just right. There is not a weak cut on the album. There will be many different album releases in 2022; different, yes, but none better.
-Frank Matheis, Living Blues Magazine, www.livingblues.com (Source: Issue #281 - Vol.53 #6)