Nirav Sanghani and the Pacific Six • Beside the Bay

If I was to describe the Pacific Six’s latest record as a no frills, economy size, value pack of swing and blues, you might well think I was being rude about it. But you would be wrong—you see, as something of a skinflint I love nothing more than knowing I’ve gotten value for money. And with Beside the Bay, that’s exactly what you get. It does exactly what it says on the tin—and certainly no less. Longtime swing dancer Nirav Sanghani and chums have been supplying the San Francisco Bay area with floor-filling swing since 2017, dipping their toes in the Seattle and Sacramento scenes too. It’s an elite group boasting bona fide, big name, band-leading musicians like Jen Hodge (bass), Justin Au (trumpet), and Jonathan Doyle (clarinet and alto sax)—so you get several star talents for the price of one, straight out of the box. Sanghani himself is a guitarist, arranger and composer of early jazz and swing, drawing from the repertoires of Benny Goodman, Johnny Hodges, Coleman Hawkins, and more. Alongside ten oldies you get not one but five of his originals on this, his outfit’s second record, all but indistinguishable from the big brand big band which inspires them. “Irrational Blues” is the album’s appetizer, a foot-tapper stuffed with catchy clarinet, sax and trumpet riffs to whet the palate, set to the twanging thump of Hodge’s upright bass. “Reactivity Blues”