By Ken Clarke
If you can imagine Big Bad Voodoo Daddy jamming with Colin James and the Brian Setzer Orchestra, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what the latest JW-Jones Blues Band CD sounds like. The group’s fourth release, Kissing In 29 Days, is a well crafted ’50s-’60s styled, jump-blues kinda thing. The production is hot and the technical expertise of this Ottawa based band is slick. Jones’ guitar prowess is particularly notable, sounding like he just bounced out of a bygone era. Adding his fluid chops to three tracks is David ‘Fathead’ Newman, long-time saxophonist for Ray Charles.
Unfortunately, most of the songs are too consistent with each other. They tend to blur into a massive swinging collective, causing the slower numbers to stand out.
These guys are great at playing straight forward, uptempo blues changes, but you must be a fan of the genre to appreciate Kissing in 29 Days.