Search - Jazz Passengers, Elvis Costello :: Reunited

Inventive, fun, well-recorded, and swinging jazz, with special guests Marc Ribot, Elvis Costello & Debbie Harry! "Mainstays of the progressive `downtown' Manhattan jazz scene for more years than they care to remember, the Jazz Passengers claim to be influenced as much by the Marx Brothers as Louis Armstrong and Sun Ra, so adding Deborah Harry, punk rock's answer to Marilyn Monroe, to their line-up might seem like a move inspired by Groucho himself. But the Passengers' mix of humor and innovation has long set them apart from the eternal purists and the earnest avant-gardists, and Miss Harry's presence in their midst prompted a vigorous piece of conceptualizing that allowed space for both singer and band to shine." -- The Spectator "Mr. Nathanson, Mr. Fowlkes, and Mr. Ribot all worked with the Lounge Lizards, a group that treated 1950s and 1960s jazz as atmospheric, found styles; with the Passengers, they go further afield. The Passengers' basic sound is that of a densely dissonant hard-bop band, updating Charles Mingus's Jazz Workshop groups, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and some of Bobby Hutcherson's and Eric Dolphy's 1960s Blue Note albums." -- Jon Pareles, New York Times