Johnny Otis - Spirit of the Black Territory Bands (1992/2020)

“This is simply the best big band swing album of the year. Pianist vibist drummer singer band leader and local hero Johnny Otis expanded his regular band to pay tribute to the regional jazz big bands of the ’30s and ’40s. There’s Duke Ellington’s New York internationalism in `Creole Love Call’ and `The Mooche’; the blues-drenched Kansas City swing of Jay McShann Count Basie and Bennie Moten; Lionel Hampton and Benny Goodman’s `Flying Home;’ even Vallejo-born Berkeley-raised Otis’ own first hit as a band leader in 1949 `Harlem Nocturne.’ The charts are amazing the solos are perfect and the dance rhythms are irresistible. More than a tribute to a past era this is an album of living music.”