Night at the Speakeasy

Svetlana Shmulyian is a singer with the kind of sweet, lilting voice ideal for the sort of sunny Thirties-style jazz she performs and the Delancey Five combo is also very adept at this style. The songs they play are a combination of period pieces and modern works, including several written by Shmulyian which mix in more advanced elements of strutting jazz like the boisterous horns on "Dance Inbetween The Moments". Then there are treatments of The Beatles' "Because" and Brian Wilson's "God Only Knows" that turn them into gently swinging jazz out of the past. "Because" even ends up sounding related to Ellington's "Black And Tan Fantasy".

All of the players get fine solo spots such as Dalton Ridenhour's dirty blues piano on "Do Nothin'" or Adrian Cunningham's hot clarinet on "Lady Be Good". Guest trombonist Wycliffe Gordon even kicks in a couple of gravelly vocal spots in the Louis Armstrong style on "Satisfied" and "Blanket Of Blue". There's a lot of old time fun on this CD but also enough modern touches to keep it from being a complete museum piece.