Track Listing

1. Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody
2. Oh Marie
3. Buona Sera
4. Jump, Jive, An' Wail
5. Basin Street Blues/When It's Sleepy Time Down South
6. Lip - Louis Prima, Keely Smith
7. Whistle Stop
8. 5 Months, 2 Weeks, 2 Days
9. Banana Split for My Baby
10. There'll Be No Next Time - Sam Butera, Louis Prima
11. When You're Smiling (The Whole World Smiles With You)/The Sheik of ...
12. Baby Won't You Please Come Home - Louis Prima, Keely Smith
13. I've Got the World on a String
14. Pennies from Heaven
15. Angelina/Zooma Zooma
16. Beep! Beep!
17. Embraceable You/I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good - Louis Prima, Keely Smith
18. Sing, Sing, Sing
19. That Old Black Magic - Louis Prima, Keely Smith
20. Music Goes 'Round and Around
21. Hey Boy, Hey Girl - Louis Prima, Keely Smith
22. Lazy River
23. I've Got You Under My Skin - Louis Prima, Keely Smith
24. You're Just in Love
25. Twist All Night
26. St. Louis Blues

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2417 in Music
• Released on: 1991-05-21
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Import

Amazon.com essential recording
Band leader and lounge kingpin Louis Prima will be best be known for the classic, "Just a Gigolo," immortalized by David Lee Roth for a whole new generation of swingers. But Prima's output went much further: in his day he recorded for Capitol, acted in a movie or two, even owned a golf course. Prima's genius is infectious: lounge, swing, and Dixieland all fuse together into medleys that are fun, dance-worthy, and upbeat. Prima's duets with Keely Smith are the obvious highlights here: "That Ol' Black Magic," "Hey Boy! Hey Girl!," and "I've Got You Under My Skin" are essential Prima tracks. Sure, the cheese factor occasionally runs high, but it is a fun trip. --Jason Verlinde

Customer Reviews

The joy of life!
This disk rocks, and is packed with great, upbeat music. It brims with humor and spirit. Even though it runs for well over an hour, I feel let down when it's over.

Unlike many of the people who have posted here before me, I have no particular interest in the swing revival, and I did not come across Louis Prima via Brian Setzer. Brian Setzer is, however, as good a link to Louis Prima as any. Prima was a mysterious figure who played heavily in the otherwise fictional 50's period Italian food film "Big Night" (1996). Intrigued, I bought this disk after seeing "Big Night" in the theatre.

True, the song "Beep Beep" is dated and corny, but it differs from the rest of the disk only in its space-age subject matter and "otherworldly" slide-guitar sound effects. It was topical during the late-50's space race. Everything else holds up perfectly well over 40-plus years.

Prima's band is tight, yet spontaneous and not sterile. He has a great onstage comic rapport with cohort Sam Butera, and also with his then-wife and straight-woman Keely Smith.

Example on "Won't You Please Come Home" --

Keely: (singing) "Won't you come get your baby..."

Louis: (stage whisper aside to audience) "Call from 'The Point'."

This disk is a must for any non-classical music lover with a pulse. This is in my top 5 CD's, out of perhaps 300 I own, and is certainly a "desert island disk." Deservedly, almost everyone on this page has given it 5 stars. It doesn't get any better than this, kids.

AN ALBUM YOU WILL TREASURE FOREVER!
Long before Brian Setzer did "Jump Jive N' Wail," and David Lee Roth did "Just A Gigolo," there was Louis Prima. He is one of the most underated and unappreciated American musicians of the 20th century! Just listen to Setzer's and Roth's (but don't waste your money buying their CD's) versions of those songs, and then listen to Prima's. Not only did Roth and Setzer literally rip off Prima (because they did little to embellish on what Prima had already done), but Prima was making this music 40 years before them! However, this is a testament to Prima's immense talent because his music is as hip today as it was 40 years ago when he was one of the greatest shows in Vegas. Prima was also a gifted songwriter and trumpet player. His voice is unique and no one else has a style like him. The music on this CD covers Prima in his prime and the sound qaulity is excellent. There is a remarkable timelessness to this album because the recordings sound so spontaneous. This album will kick any party into high-gear and will always put a smile on your face. If you really want the real Mcoy when it comes to swing, then Prima's music can't be beat. Prima was a pioneer in swing/jazz who's time has come. He deserves more than just Gap commercials and soundtracks to movies. His place in American music needs to be redefined as one of the greats whose genius was just as immense as Sir Duke's and Dizzy's. Get this album and you'll see what I'm talking about and then tell your friends where the real Swing comes from.

Madcap music
Louis Prima and his rollicking crew of wife, Keely Smith, Saxaphonist Sam Butera and the Witnesses were the number one act in Vegas in the late 1950s. This is high energy, humorous music in a style of...well...Dixieland jazz with an Italian accent?

Some of the songs start out slow and tender, but they don't stay that way. Prima's gravel voice and trumpet and Butera's saxophone quickly convert all tunes into hard-driving swing. Cherokee-Irish Keely Smith has a sweet simple voice and her duets with Louis on songs like "That Ol' Black Magic" are outstanding.

This is music that's gotta make you a little happier than you are. Missing on this CD, however, is one of Louis's best numbers: the show-stopper from Disney's animated movie, "The Jungle Book." And Keely's solo "The Sunny Side of the Street"-- in my humble opinion, the best ever rendition of this song -- isn't here either. Too bad, but nothing is ever perfect.