Michael Law’s Piccadilly Dance Orchestra • When You’re Smiling

Over the three-and-some decades of its existence, Michael Law’s Piccadilly Dance Orchestra has recorded eight full-length albums. That may not sound like much, until you consider that long residencies at London’s Ritz and Savoy hotels have kept them busy—alongside numerous recordings for and appearances on BBC radio, BBC television, and even the silver screen (in Last Orders starring Michael Caine and Helen Mirren). The outfit’s first release was in 1988, a vinyl single featuring “Two Sleepy People” and “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”—highly appropriate, considering that I’ve sat down to review their brand new release a mere fortnight before Christmas. When You’re Smiling features fourteen tracks arranged to make you move, be it a foxtrot or Lindy hop. Most of the titles will be familiar to swing dancers, although the arrangements may not be—several of the Jazz Age classics were reinterpreted during the Swing Era, but Law and co lean heavily towards earlier arrangement styles. Take “My Baby Just Cares for Me.” All but the most avid early jazz fans, of which there will be plenty amongst our readers, will first think of Nina Simone’s version—a perennial favorite at swing dance events. But PDO, being staunch advocates for the originals, do something closer to the Eddie Cantor version which Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn penned for 1930 musical comedy Whoo