Little Brother Montgomery's State Street Swingers - Goodbye Mr. Blues

While generally considered a blues pianist, Little Brother Montgomery actually worked in many

styles, and had a strong jazz influence. On this CD, most of the music is - to my ears, anyway - in the Dixieland/swing/jazz style of blues, with a healthy dose of horns dominating the proceedings. The majority of tunes are instrumentals, with the horns taking the melody, although Montgomery does take a couple of lead vocals on bluesier numbers like "Old Maid Blues".

We get a couple of rare 4-string (!) guitar solos on "Saturday Night Function" and the alternative take of "Goodbye Mr. Blues" and Montgomery's piano pops out now and again, although he doesn't usually use it as a solo instrument - he leads in the literal sense of the word and allows the others to perform the majority of the breaks.

I do enjoy listening to jazz and jazz-influenced work but I admit that I am not very knowledgeable in that field so I can't talk about it as intellectually as I might like. But, this is enjoyable pop/jazz/blues performed by some talented players. Not high energy or gritty, but nice stuff.