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Kit and the boys take us back to the jumping 40’s with a representative selection of tracks including four self-penned numbers that incorporate the familiar honk, scream, wail of the saxophone alongside the double entendre lyrics and some tight jazzy arrangements which showcase the members of the band.
For this Spotlite album, Kit is joined by a host of notables ranging from Wolfie on harp, Don Lang from the original Frantic 5 on trombone to Raoul D’Oliviera on trumpet and last but not least former Chevalier Brother Roger Beaujolais on vibes.
The band proper impresses with some stylish playing, with Tim Richards laying down some mean left hand rhythm on the boogie woogie influenced “Just Like a Woman”, whilst the horn section beefs up the rhythm to capture the jump jive era that produced Jordan/Gaillard and Calloway.
The copy of the album that I have is a second generation cassette that unfortunately does little for the vocals which is a pity because Kit Packham enjoys his own style of delivery that goes beyond the mere dutiful covering of obvious songs like “Caledonia”. His own material is promising with “Dr Jump & Sister Jive”, and “Is There a Doctor in the House” being the strongest of the batch. The band as a whole are more confident on up-tempo numbers like the state of the art “Just Like a Woman”, whilst the jazzier “Filthy McNasty” features a smouldering Jimmy Smith type organ solo from pianist Richards, and a Charlie Christian influenced guitar solo from Brain Bull before the number is wrapped up by some soulful sax.
Overall K. P. & His Sudden Jump Band have managed to produce an album that is fairly representative of this good humoured band that know how to jump the blues. You can almost picture Kit with boater on his head and a fixed broad grin churning out the lyric “Don’t want no milkman whipping up my baby’s cream”. It’s all great fun from a band well worth catching.
(copyright 1986, reproduced from Highly Strung fanzine)
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