Cookin' At The Corner, Volume 1

The setup is piano-bass-drums plus singer, but the leader is the drummer, and he sings some too. In fact, DeMerle and Eisele pair up like Louis Prima and Keely Smith, even if they play it straight most of the time. (But not all the time: DeMerle sings one about a sailor who comes home after three years to find his wife has a new baby named Bennie. Where'd he come from, the sailor wonders? "Bennie's From Heaven.") Eisele doesn't enter until the fifth song, then belts out Ellington, Jobim, "Lullaby of Birdland." DeMerle's quite a drummer, and pianist Mike Levine bounces in an all-upbeat program until he gets a lovely ballad at the end. Nothing groundbreaking, but it's good to be reminded that jazz was once a form of entertainment. This is a lot of fun.