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Junior brass boss
Just when Serbian Gypsy brass band leaders were sighing in relief that flugelhorn maestro Boban Markovic had retired from the Gucca Festival competition he dominated – his teenage flugelhorn-blasting son Marko has stepped up to take his old man’s place on the bandstand. On the hard-charging Boban I Marko ( Piranha ) disc, energetic junior sounds like he’ll soon be wearing his battle-bored dad’s brass crown.
He bangs
Long before Ricky Martin shook his bon-bon to She Bangs and choreographically challenged American Idol hopeful William Hung turned it into an Internet phenomenon, Studio One keyboard king Jackie Mitoo came up with a swinging boogaloo-ska hybrid, El Bang Bang, which the Soul Jazz label has thoughtfully reissued as a 10-inch single to preview the new Ska volume of the excellent Studio One reissue series. Almost as fabulous is the majestic Sampson by Tommy McCook’s Orchestra on the flip.
You go, cowgirl!
There have been loads of old-time music comps covering pre-country recordings from the 20s and 30s, but unfortunately, the contribution of women artists is typically limited to a couple of tracks from the Carter Family or Patsy Montana. The deep-digging Trikont label attempts to redress the imbalance with the enlightening Flowers In The Wildwood disc. Along with the requisite contribution from the Carters you’ll find happy songs of death from a variety of pistol-packin’ mamas and sweetly harmonizing sister acts like Moonshine Kate , the Dezurik Sisters , the Coon Creek Girls , Louisiana Lou , Southland’s Ladies Quartette and others. The Handsome Family ‘s Rennie Sparks writes the liner notes. Delightful.
Better than Essra?
For years it was difficult if not impossible to find the recordings of Frank Zappa ‘s singer/songwriter protege Essra Mohawk (aka Philadelphia’s Sandy Hurvitz). She’s known as “the secret diva” for good reason. But there’s been growing cult interest in her early solo work since Rhino Handmade ‘s release of Primordial Lovers MM, an insightful survey of her jazzy Reprise and Asylum sessions. The UK’s RPM label has just issued Girls Go Zonk – U.S. Dream Babes . Among long- forgotten transistor radio classics like the Tammys ‘ enjoyably unhinged Egyptian Shumba , Patti Seymour ‘s swank theme to The Silencers, Donna Loren ‘s hipshakin’ dance craze non-starter So, Do The Zonk, there’s a Lesley Gore-style number, The Boy With The Way, by Jamie Carter , which happens to be an early alias of Essra Mohawk.
