Swinging jazz group Blue Vipers of Brooklyn to throw CD release party in New York City on February 23rd
(Published: February 18, 2011)

(New York City, NY) Written by Robert Sutton. There are old souls in the young bodies of the Blue Vipers of Brooklyn. For a band so steeped in the Dixieland jazz, swing, and blues of the ‘20s and ‘30s, is there a better explanation?

The Blue Vipers have just released the anxiously awaited Permanent Magic, which finds the group expanding their yen for ragtime to Americana and country music. It's the best kind of roots record, one that explores the various sounds that turned on the youth in pre-and-post WWII America. Unifying it all is the band's dazzling jazz chops. After all, this is a jazz group, and if they're going to cover Hank Williams, it'll still sound like themselves.

The best compliment to give Permanent Magic is that it sounds old. It does; no doubt about it. In fact, vocalist/guitarist Billy Nemec seems to have stepped out of a time machine. Maybe he was. Perhaps all of the group's members were actually players during the Prohibition era, took a swill of the wrong kind of moonshine, and then woke up in the 21st century. That would certainly solve the mystery of how the opening cut, "Blue Drag," with its locomotive beat, playful saxophone, jamming bass, giddy trumpets, and soaring four-part harmonies sounds eerily authentic, like a lost 78. Even the Blue Vipers' remake of Hank Williams' eternal 1951 smash, "Hey Good Lookin'," has that nostalgic air of AM radio to it produced by the scorching horns, clapping washboard percussion, and old timey blues singing. The band tries to throw us off the time travel scent by deliberately adding scratchy vinyl and vintage microphone effects on the title track, but we know better.

Also featuring Chris Pistorino (upright bass), David Langlois (washboard percussion), Sam Hoyt (trumpet), Tom Abbott (saxophone), and Matt Musselman (trombone), the Blue Vipers of Brooklyn will be throwing a CD release party at Tammany Hall in New York City on Wednesday, February 23rd from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. Cover charge is only $10.

More Information: http://thebluevipersofbrooklyn.com

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