Sue Palmer and her Motel Swing Orchestra • Eight To The Bar

Pianist Sue Palmer has led her Motel Swing Orchestra for 25 years. Remarkably the personnel has remained the same for all of this time (trombonist April West, Jonny Viau on tenor and baritone, guitarist Steve Wilcox, bassist Pete Harrison, and drummer Sharon Shufelt) except for their lead vocalist Liz Ajuzie who joined the group five years ago.

Eight To The Bar performs joyful jump music of the late 1940s with a few departures on their latest recording, Eight To The Bar. The set begins with the rollicking good-time Tiny Bradshaw piece “I’m Gonna Have Myself A Ball.” It contains a spirited vocal along with colorful tenor, trombone, guitar, and piano solos. “Roll ’Em” continues the party mood with Palmer’s boogie-woogie piano. “Don’t You Think I Ought To Know” is a bluesy ballad for the singer about being betrayed in love.

Palmer’s original “Looking For A Parking Place” which has a shuffle rhythm and an unusual bridge, is about the difficulties of modern-day city life. The introspective “Reaching For The Moon” is rather mournful. Certainly a change of pace is a rendition of the Linda Ronstadt hit “You’re No Good” with Yo Jonsey Jones guesting as lead singer while Ruth and Liz Ajuzie are heard as background singers.

A brief version of “Charleston” has new lyrics by Liz Ajuzie that pay tribute to James P. Johnson and Josephine Baker. The original “Ne m’oubliez pas (Don’t Forget Me)” imagines Josephine Baker and club owner Bricktop saying a sad farewell (accentuated by Ruth Ajuzie’s violin) as the Nazis were advancing on Paris in 1940. Eight To The Bar concludes on a much happier note with the swinging “You Got Me Reelin’ And Rockin.’”

Clearly the Motel Swing Orchestra would be a fun band to see live. Next best is hearing

Eight To The Bar, a varied yet consistently enjoyable set.

Sue Palmer and her Motel Swing Orchestra • Eight To The Bar
Self-Released
www.suepalmer.com

Scott Yanow

Since 1975 Scott Yanow has been a regular reviewer of albums in many jazz styles. He has written for many jazz and arts magazines, including JazzTimes, Jazziz, Down Beat, Cadence, CODA, and the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, and was the jazz editor for Record Review. He has written an in-depth biography on Dizzy Gillespie for AllMusic.com. He has authored 11 books on jazz, over 900 liner notes for CDs and over 20,000 reviews of jazz recordings. Yanow was a contributor to and co-editor of the third edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz. He continues to write for Downbeat, Jazziz, the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, the Jazz Rag, the New York City Jazz Record and other publications.