The Wildest!

Jazz standards by monkey guy from jungle book

Just a rip roarin good time. I want whatever drugs Louis is having.

there’s only so much scatting one girl can take

Any album containing a song played by Marvin Berry and the Starlighters for the Enchantment Under the Sea dance is good enough for me! In a word though, this album is "joyous", end-to-end. It lands like a band of musicians who really are have a great time playing together and a band leader that is both putting on the act for the crowd and having fun goofing for the band itself. Even songs with titles like "(I'll Be Glad When You're Dead) You Rascal You" lands like playful teasing between friends. I'll definitely be coming back to this album again and again. Worth every star. Interesting aside, this is the first album where I noticed the wikipedia page pointed to the book that appears to be the source material for this site's list. Spoiler alert.

I will not tell you how many songs in I was when I realized that Louis Prima voiced the orangutan king in The Jungle Book (facepalm). But this is my kind of cooking music! I particularly like the vocal quality of the female singer (Keely Smith I’m guessing?) and the harmony sections. Remarkable how many of these songs start with nearly the exact same walking bass line from the piano, just in different keys (listen to the first few seconds of #1, #3 and #6). There was an Italian grocery store down the street from our last apartment in Long Island and this is very much the type of music they played, so it was a nostalgic listen. Final thought - did “gigolo” mean something different in 1956?

It was unfair to take this photo while the man was yawning. Having said that, he has good top teeth. The bottom teeth are either missing or hidden.

[Exterior: Brooklyn, New York. Summer 1961. We fade into a street level view of a working class neighborhood, a block of Brownstone, 3 story walkups. Boys clad in white t-shirts and slacks play stickball in the middle of the street. Girls skip rope on the sidewalk. In the distance, a fire hydrant has been uncapped, spraying water into the street for children splash around in: a welcome reprieve on an unrelentingly hot August day. The camera pans from street level and slowly zooms in on a window on the third floor of one of the Brownstones] [Interior: Third floor apartment living room with adjoining kitchen - A man, mid 40’s, wearing a ratty sleeveless undershirt sits in an armchair, listening to a record play on his console stereo. He is smoking a cigarette and reading the newspaper. A small silver metallic fan stationed on a nearby end table oscillates slowly, providing the slightest bit of relief from the punishing heat. His wife, Marie, is in the kitchen making a jello mold with the fruit she picked up at the market earlier in the day. The man taps his foot to the record…eventually his eyes light up, struck by an idea.] The man says to his wife: “Oh, Marie! Why didn’t you tell me there was going to be some porno jazz on this 1001 albums list?!? This is fantastic! I tell you what…you call the Lombardi’s, you tell them to get their asses over here at 7pm for dinner. They gotta hear this fuckin’ record…unbelievable! I’m gonna head down to the butcher, get some braciole, some gabagool…it’s gonna be a party!” [end scene]

I bet you this would've been super fun to see live. New Orleans truly has a fantastic music scene, and Mr. Prima must've been the absolute king. Love the sense of humor and the lively brass. Favorite tracks: "Buono Sera", "I'll Be Glad When You're Dead", "Jump Jive an' Wail"

I feel like you would have to hate music/fun not to enjoy this.

God the 50s are fucking dreadful.

Quite enjoyable from King Louis

Funny, energetic recording of Prima's legendary live show. It's loose and irreverent, uptempo and hilarious. Prima takes liberties with his own material and jazz standards to create a raucous big band experience that leans towards the coming RnB.

eifach orang-utan moment ich lieb d rueh aber au lebensfreud wommer iwie us de musig ghört s albumcover passt au seeehr guet ich lieb wenner iwie nonsense singt BANANA SPLIT FOR MY BABYYYYY fuck es macht so spass hahahah aso geg de schluss hani chli abghenkt aber so es klars 4i

I'm a big fan of this particular brand of swing music, where it's got this energy and gibberish and craziness to the lyrics. It feels like a party to me, and it connects with me a lot more than straight Jazz.

I actually enjoyed this more then I expected - but a whole album of trumpet-y swing is a bit much for me

Love it, makes me want to dance. The oldest one yet and the funniest one probably

This is wild alright! Also rich and engaging, I just ordered the vinyl.

I like this way more than I expected. It sounds like people having a great time. The harmony in the brass and vocals is really satisfying, and their voices are really cool individually.

I bet Louis Prima and David Lee Roth would have been fast friends. After listening to this album, I have a sneaky suspicion that Diamond Dave patterned his entire lead singer persona on Prima. We should have known this when one of the first things Roth did after leaving Van Halen was to cover "Just A Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody". You can totally picture Roth singing a lot of these lyrics scored to Eddie Van Halen's manic guitars and Michael Anthony providing the background vocals instead of Keely Smith. And I'm also guessing Diamond Dave's lifetime dream would be to voice an orangutan in a Disney movie. Similar to most things involving Roth, this thing is a freaking party. I love an album cover that tells you everything it's all about. Look no further to hear why Louis Prima was called The King Of Swing. What an absolute joy.

This was bloody awful. It was like listening to a whole album of Joe Dolce. I prefer Dave Lee Roth's version of Just a Giglio - and that's saying something. The only relief was when the instrumentals silenced the 'humour'.

Great 50's party music. The band is red hot and the lyrics are quite amusing. Hard to be depressed while listening to this stuff!

Yeah! Let's swing, baby! This is fantastic! (5/5) What a joyous and kinetic sound! I was familiar with a few of these and enjoyed those ("Jump, Jive.." & "Buona Sera" immediately but I recognized a few more) but all of them just kept my foot tapping and head bobbing. I assume there won't be much else like this on the list because it doesn't have enough Bleeps and Bloops. I'm sure it was just another 'quota' album, but I'm damned glad I found this one!

184. The Wildest! - Louis Prima (1956) 8.25.26 Variety: 5 Adequacy: 5 Listenability: 5 Uniqueness: 4 Emotionality: 4 = 4.6 rounded up to a 5 "Well... you take a bucketful of steam and a dozen rooster eggs/ And you mix 'em up gently with a bushel full of goldfish legs/ And ya hang 'em on a sky hook in the midnight sun/ Mmm, and then you fry them until they're done" A formative piece of pop culture for me was the 60s Jungle Book cartoon. I LOVED King Louie and "I Wan'na Be Like You" remains in regular rotation in my 5-star playlist. When I was old enough to care about such things and found out who Louis Prima was, I took note and eventually listened to a good portion of his catalogue, and was pleased to find that that energy and voice that I loved was pretty consistent throughout. I don't recall listening to this particular album all the way through, but I'm pretty familiar with a lot of the tracks. This is primo comfort food music for me, so I'm guessing we'll end up with a positive outcome. THE TRACKS Side 1 "Just a Gigolo / I Ain't Got Nobody (and Nobody Cares for Me)" - Of course I first heard this medley via the charms of a certain Mr. Lee Roth ( which I still love - and which has a very memorable music video in which he possesses the power to kill priests with his pelvic thrusts ), but I might have heard this version floating around in a movie or tv show before I ever knew who Prima was. I'd wager this was his signature song pre-Disney fame, and it's an amazing bit of table setting for the album, full of life and energy, and that live in the studio feel that the Muddy Waters album we just listened to also replicated very well. Prima is one of THE voices for me. I'll take his sand-papery, deeply theatrical style over the likes of Sinatra, Elvis, Sam Cooke or even Freddie Mercury any day of the week. Is he gimmicky as all get out? Sure. But that wild abandon is a hard thing to fake, even among the best, and Prima had it in spades. I'd be hard pressed to think of too many other male vocalists who immediately give off such warm and comforting vibes. This song is an all-timer. David Lee Roth music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkdhhEjX-I0 "(Nothing's Too Good) For My Baby" - We get a very cute duet with Prima and his wife Keely Smith. She's got a smooth velvety delivery that pairs very well with Prima's rasp, and the two kill it here, with a bouncy little number that's a little bit funny, and is absolutely charming, even with the tongue in cheek threat of domestic violence. "The Lip" - The echo is turned WAY up here, for Smith to ponder over the secret of Prima's trumpet playing powers, with a nice little bit of boogie-woogie piano leading the way. This was a bit of light fun, and it's very easy to imagine the couple's onstage chemistry here. "Body and Soul" - One of the great jazz standards, Prima and the band choose this moment to inject a bit of a more serious, vibe into the goings on, starting slow and romantic, and then bursting out with more upbeat joyousness. I'm trying to imagine the poor bastard whose day wouldn't be brightened by this. Anything but faithful, the band even dips into a jazzy bit of Edvard Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King (!) before the end. "Oh Marie" - A hit from WAY back in the 1880's, Prima turns this into a cool swinging number, with more than a little New Orleans flavor, and gets to showcase some Italian. This makes me wonder how much of his scatting, if any, might actually be Italian phrases... Side 2 "Basin Street Blues / When It's Sleepy Time Down South" - This medley allows the band to dip into some Dixieland jazz stylings, and provides possibly the best showcase for Prima's trumpet thus far. And possibly serves as a tribute of sorts to his artistic idol and biggest influence - Louis Armstrong - on the back end. This was fantastic. "Jump, Jive, an' Wail" - Famously chosen by Brian Seltzer as the song to spearhead his 90's comeback and reinvention as a latter day "King of Swing", he couldn't have made a better selection. That was no doubt the first version of this I must have heard, and despite my general loathing of the whole swing revival aesthetic, even I was aware that this was a killer of a track. Prima and the band are at their most rockingest on this track, which is full of the sort of energy that just might prompt a group of be-khakied 20-somethings to spontaneously erupt into a swing dance musical number right before your eyes. It boggles the mind that Bill Haley and the Comets never covered this one. Even more crazy is that I seem to be unable to find a cover of this by anyone other than goofy ass zoot-suited late 90s dudes. "Buona Sera" - This starts as the kind of thing you would hear Dean Martin sing ( which he apparently did) and ends as another rocking number, when Prima and the guys turn up the energy, transforming this little Italian tango number into something very different for a brief bit, before ending back in the original mode. "Night Train (instrumental)" - I think this might be our first song repeat on the list out of 184 albums, but that doesn't seem possible, right? James Brown and company also ended the Live at the Apollo with the same song, and while both are STUPENDOUS, not sure either can hold a candle to the 1955 version by Marvin Berry and the Starlighters. It's a hard one to find as it was recorded live at a small show, but seek it out if you can. Prima's band aces yet another one, and this one's a bit slower and maybe comes across as just a tiny bit sexier ( dig that dirty saxophone) for it than some versions I've heard. It makes you shiver with antici......pation during those pauses. "(I'll Be Glad When You're Dead) You Rascal You" - We end things on maybe the funniest track on the album with some fine New Orleans tinged jazz, with a call for the death of some dirty, lowdown, scumbag who had the temerity to pilfer Mr. Prima's meatballs. The nerve! HIGHLIGHTS - Every last bit MIDLIGHTS - LOWLIGHTS - FINAL THOUGHTS This was a delight from top to bottom, and really put a pep in my step, so to speak. The tendency for the human mind to look for patterns seems in full force with the list as it seems like we sometimes get on some really good hot streaks where we'll get 4-5 absolute burners in a row, followed by a fallow period. But I'd like to lean into the pattern here and hope for a few more days worth of smooth sailing, where ( I hope) our group can find more common ground than not. Prima is one of those guys whose stuff you might not always think about, but who when you remember it exists, can easily bring a smile to your face. Every track on here was fun, and as light as it was, it served as an awesome tonic to liven the mood and add some color to things. I'm not even sure I would rank it as great based on the criteria that it's essential, as much as I would an exemplar of pure entertainment. Unfettered by any deep messaging, serious tones, or intellectual baggage, it zeroes in on that part of your brain that wants to just enjoy life, as does most music I've heard from the man. There are so few ways to get this nowadays that it was a real treat to get to wallow around in it for 32 minutes. If you get a chance, seek out some of the tv performances Prima, Smith, and his band made. The charisma and chemistry on display is great, ad still holds up. Smith's deadpan at her husband's antics are played for laughs, and it's a good time. Here's a sample of it with the group performing "Just a Gigolo / I Ain't Got Nobody" on the Ed Sullivan show in 1959: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSGVD2DgWy8 PLAYLIST ALTERATIONS -No need FURTHER LISTENING - Swingin' Pretty by Keely Smith - The Big Horn by Sam Butera & The Witnesses - Let the Good Times Roll: The Music of Louis Jordan - Rockin' is Our Business by The Treniers - More Greatest Hits - Good Rockin' Tonight by Wynonie Harris - This Time I'm Swingin'! by Dean Martin by Dean Martin

Great harmonies and great horns. It’s impressive that he could take one song that was 25 years old and another that was 40 and make them modern hits (that others have covered as recently as ‘17). This had me smiling and swinging, from start to finish. Keely Smith has great vocals in front and in harmony.

Love hearing him tell his band to let it rip on their solos - SING UP. The call and response songs are great too, especially the Lip. Some of them are funny as well - Glad When You're Dead and the twist at the end of Banana Split is hilarious.

Pure fun! This is such a joyful album. I love Louis's voice and the playful way he engages the other contributors. Everything about this evokes carefree, don't take life too seriously fun vibes. I like it a lot!

Super fun and energetic! Great mix of traditional songs, comedy songs, and instrumentals. Holds up really well -especially with so much comedic content - for being from the 50s. Just jazzy enough without being overbearing and a great example of (mostly) using scat and ad libs without being annoying or overtaking the song. Several great tracks but Banana Split is a delight!

This is great party music. I'd heard David Lee Roth's cover of "Just a Jigalo", and I much prefer Louis Prima's version. But it's so cool to hear where that came from.

Wow, was not expecting a 1950's big band/swing album but I applaud the creators of this list for including it as everyone should experience music from this bygone age. This one is a classic. Excellent choice. Listen and enjoy.

Oh wow, this is amazing! Such a fun album. So glad this came up and I was able to listen to it and to fall in love with it.

What a blast! Some good blues and jazz by the guy that voiced King Louie in Disney's Jungle Book? Sign me up! Starts out with Just A Gigolo, just an absolute fun time. For My Baby and Basin Street Blues were still good, and those were the weakest songs. The Lip, Oh Marie, and Buona Sera are just amazing. Body And Soul is an instrumental, normally I rate those a bit lower, but this was just incredible. Great trumpet music. And then there's the classic, Jump Jive An' Wail, always a great listen. Ending up on the funny You Rascal You. Normally I just listen to the album as it was released, but I ended up listening to the extended version of this one. All the songs are 3s and 4s, but overall the album is better than the sum of its parts. Such fun, I had a smile on my face the whole way through. Loved it! Best song: Just A Gigolo

My Dad LOVED Louis Prima and would play him w/ Keely Smith all the time. I think he imagined he and my Mom as a version of them. So I can't listen to this objectively, and it was great to hear him again, especially "The Lip" which I always loved. Here's to you, Dad!

So this site tells you what your favorite genres and artists and decades are after rating enough albums, and for the bulk of me doing it it's been telling me my favorite decade for music is the '50s? Which is funny because I listen to like, no music from the '50s. But I think it's because the sample size of '50s albums is much smaller, and all of the albums I've heard from this from the '50s so far have just been a lot of fun and perfectly pleasant and haven't been as strongly love or hate as the rest. So I guess my favorite decade will remain the '50s because this was so much fun. This is just really enjoyable and dancey swing music with some jazz and 12 bar blues thrown in too. This was fun!!

Oh this is a lot of fun. A lot of joy. It's a gem..5 stars.

This album has a song where the singer wishes death upon a friend who ate too many meatballs.

This album was so fun!!! I loved it from start to finish. Some of the lyrics even made me laugh out loud. The only way it could have been better is if I knew all the words by heart so I could have sung along.

The warmest, the strongest, the wildest! Fuuuck just a gigolo isch jo mol crazy guet. Gad zwei mol glost. For you I'd learn how to bake a pie, okee da isch scho no cute. I find amel chli schwierig wenn lüüt seged bring back the good times. Aber wenn hesch s letscht mol e pärli ghört zweistimmig scatte Uiii noone plays high notes like the lip! Wieso isch de song so funny? Nocher die nöchste paar sind meh chli standart songs. Sehr guet aber nöd meega bsunders. Uultra solids album und eifach en vibe wod nüm so ghörsch, dases so funny druf sind. Ussert in punk und so.

Całkiem zajebisty stary jazz.

To put it simply, I just had a really good time with this album. I knew some of Prima's work before hand, not in any huge capacity, but the two songs of his I do know are fortuiously both from this album (Gigolo and Banana Split), so I had some idea of what this album would sound like and what to expect, but no particular expectation I would inherently like it. I certainly did. This album is just a lot of fun, the jazz holds up impressively well 70-odd years after its release and every song is individually entertaining, in no small part due to the impressive jazz being backed up by very light-hearted lyrics. Not entirely my thing, but if this album reared its head again 100 albums or so down the line I certainly wouldn't mind going through it a second time, a rare praise with even some of the strongest albums here not being a return-trip kind of experience. Louis and his band just seemed to have a good time here, and I was more than happy to come along for the ride. And that's without touching on the actual musicians at play here. Prima is a great vocalist who suits the upbeat, often silly lyrics to a T, and his backing band really shine through. I'm always a bit of a sucker for brass as a sound, so the backing band's performance was very enjoyable. Perhaps not worthy of full marks, but admittedly not far off, which from my previous Prima experiences I was not expecting him to hit such a high. Maybe not the wildest! anymore with nearly a century of newcomers raising the stakes, but a solid album all the same.

i really liked this one! it's a good new orleans swing record. really fun and energetic. you can tell it would have been a great party record in the 1950s. louis' energy here is infectious and the entire band follows suit. some songs are sung by keely smith, who also does a good job but i feel like her solo songs are the more ballady, less fun songs. regardless, the album is a really joyful listen.

Overall fun

I love it!

kezdem nagyon nem szeretni ezt az öt csillagot, mert óriási menőség ez, rebellis meg hangos meg vicces, csak nem szerettem bele olyan olthatatlanul, hogy ötöst adjak. 😬

This is quirky. Jump, Jive, An'Wail is a rock solid rock steady standard. You Rascal You is also very fun.

Swingin’ jazz and blues that’s fun and full of energy. So many songs just erupt into a nebula of exuberant raucousness. Lead playing is very lyrical. Just a pleasant listen overall - it’s hard to imagine someone completely disliking it. That said, I’m not sure if this is something I’ll revisit or eventually forget about.

Makes me want to drink whiskey and smoke cigarettes

3 known tracks just a gigolo/I ain't got nobody, jump jive an wail and night train (enchantment under the sea dance ha!) . A fun album. Swing, big band and jazz influences.

A good jazz album. Pretty solid listening.

Music was fun enough to gloss over the occasional sexist or misogynistic lyrics that were endemic to the time period.

Lots of fun. 3.5* rounding up to 4.

Absolute primo dancing in the kitchen drink red wine album. Let also take a moment to appreciate the line, “when you’re dead and in your grave no more ravioli will you crave”

Amazing mood lifter! Grab your sweetheart and the gang for a swinging good time

Cool album Lots of twists and turns and mix of jazz rock n roll and blues

Fun swing/ragtime

Oh man. Louis Prima was lowkey a terrible human, but the energy of his big band is just fantastic. Keely has an awesome voice and Sam Butera is the perfect foil to his big personality.

Well this was quite a rollicking fun time. Trumpets, singing, happy vibes.

just a gigolo i aint got a nobody- a mashup im told. bouncy and charismatic, love the instrumental breaks with the brass where it seems like he gets so into the song he has to step off the stage to dance with the crowd. the lip- i cant tell if one line is racist but good storytelling. yip yip yip. basin street blues- FUCKS HARD love when he acts so drunk he cant get words out right you rascal you- fallout!!!

The Wildest! sent me into a reverie about the peculiar power held by recordings of party music made by and for the now-dead. This has the hoodlum energy of “Rumble” and would sit easily in a film like “Touch of Evil”, exuberant, suggestive, made for dancing, built from old structures, old instruments, edgy material in the day: the biker gang would move to this, Mexican Heston certainly not. Reckon Fatsuit Welles would side with the kids on this one. I think I’ll join him. (Most of those kids are gone now.)

My favorite things about this sound, is that it is exemplified by very physical verbs. Swing. Jump. Jive. Wail. Very true to how this makes you feel.

4.2 - Alright, alright, alright, alright! A swinging, bopping blend of big brass jazz and rock-n-roll. Stylish, energetic and fun. Not a stale doo-wop record, this one really pops.

Great mix of jazz, R&B, swing, and early rock and roll. This album is high energy until the very end. I have heard of Louis Prima before, but I'm glad to have become more familiar with his music. This album would have been very influential at this particular musical crossroads. Prima's embrace of the burgeoning rock and roll genre is a testament to his flexibility and openness.

Louis Prima uses his vocal command to weave a catchy record with an easy beat. It seems that this record begins to bridge the dinner club / big band era toward the next stage of being a jazz singer.

This is the good thing about this. Never in a million years would I have listened to a Louis Prima album! Good fun.

What can I say other than it's snappy, energetic and makes you want to dance. Love Louis and his collaborations with Keely Smith and Sam Butera. No one plays high knows like The Lip. (yip yip yip yip)

This was a surprisingly fun record. I did not expect to enjoy this album NEARLY as much as I did. It felt like the soundtrack to an old black & white film or a modern Pixar movie - in all the best ways. There's so much life and joy and energy here. It's just a blast. That said, it's definitely a particular vibe and I'm not usually in the mood for something likt that. But I'm making a note of this one to come back to when I AM in the mood because, when you want it, it comes in hot.

Just tryna test out the editing

Yeah ok better than I thought it would be

Of its time. Catchy lyrics and melodies. Some songs covered decades after this original release. Defintely a vibe. Louis Prima had a really nice singing voice.

The Wildest! This isn’t at all wild, but it’s very enjoyable in an Elf/LA Confidential/When Harry Met Sally soundtrack way. It’s a very easy listen with a nice sense of fun and playfulness, the New Orleans swing really gives it some movement and life. The horns aren’t overbearing as they often can be and I really like the combination of his and Keely Smith’s vocals, his growling jumpy exuberance and her chatty jazzy style have a nice carefree feel together. In the right mood I’d definitely listen again, but it probably won’t go into heavy rotation, making it a solidly enjoyable 3. 🦧🦧🦧 Playlist submission: (Nothing’s Too Good For My Baby)

Klassiker!

For the time it was a well respected album and very unique voice. Still pretty alright

норм

The only great thing David Lee Roth did in his solo career was to introduce a new generation to "Just A Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody". It's such a classic song, fun and bouncy. In 1956, a nearly 5 minute song was an opus like "Stairway To Heaven" was so many years later. "Jump, Jive, An' Wail" was a hit for Brian Setzer in the 90's. This is my first foray into a Louis P album, I know the name but not the catalog outside of the lead track. The horns are fun as hell, what a party his shows must have been back in the day. It felt like a live recording. Horn heavy and leaning hard on his female singing partner, Keely Smith, this is an enjoyable album with no tracks I felt I needed to fast forward over. A lot of it sounded very similar. Not sure what this album did to make the Top 1001 since I don't hear a long term impact on music, but maybe it changed music in the 1950's. With three big hits, including "Buona Sera", it has credibility for the time as it must have been huge back then. He's got a good voice, my fav track was "I'll Be Glad When You're Dead...". 3 solid stars for master hornsmanship, a frolicking beat and good energy.

As a teen of the 80s, I became familiar with medley of Just A Gigolo / I Ain't Got Nobody thanks to a (pales in comparison) cover by David Lee Roth. I had heard this version, and some of his other music, in movies over the years. The album is a collection of jazz/blues numbers (some familiar classics, some new to me) played with a swagger, instances of fun silliness, great call and response vocals/instrumentation, all wrapped around Prima's frenetic trumpet playing. If I were to imagine a 50s / early 60s party album, the Wildest would be it - a fun and up-tempo album that makes you want to dance, laugh and have a good time.

It was very humorous; I enjoyed myself!

Background music, nothing special

słuchało się lepszych albumów z tego okresu

This isn't for me. It's harmless enough, though ridiculously repetitive, but that borders on the annoying. I would never choose to listen to this, but I wouldn't complain too much if it were on in the background in a shop or elevator.

Energetic swing-jazz belters. Sounds like kid's party music in places, just drivel and/or terrible lyrics. Louis Jordan with a lobotomy. Again, you can see why rock'n'roll was so exciting in the late 50's by contrast.

Niet helemaal mijn stijl, beetje meh

When we speak of timeless, this is exactly what we mean. Very old music, still good.

Louie my childhood hero with balu the bear...makes Heidi compliments. c

I knew the voice before I knew the name - an iconic album tbh.

loved it

Now this is what I call a good time. Fun music, funny lyrics, catchy riffs, jazzy horns, and just plain thoroughly enjoyable music that hits you right out of the gate with the single that David Lee Roth famously lifted (and I mean note for note, inflection for inflection) to kickstart his solo career and Mtv dominance in the mid 80s. Knew several of these without ever having to try, and put together this one is a perfect time capsule of mid 50s swing, at the hands of the great King Louis himself. Rounds very nicely up to a 5/5 with a few tracks that are saved to my permanent playlist.

“I tell you hon, I read a little bit, but not enough to hurt me none.” I get the biggest surprise from this project when I check my summary page and there under favorite decade is the 1950s. Now, I’m a ‘90s kids and my favorite decade of music is the 1990s, however, I keep getting outstanding albums from the 1950s that I rate pretty high. This one was no different. What a fun listen! Big band swinging sound with a touch of humor and perfect timing. The rapport that Keely Smith and Louis Prima have is wonderful to behold. I appreciate the skill these singers of the 50s had. Maybe I have the sensibilities of an old soul too. Who knows? It’s just good.

Perfect!

What a great fun record. It has great playing, humour and Louis' great gravely voice.

LOVED. Found the entire album so fun. Especially loved “The Lip” & “Buona Sera”

Just a really fun album. Great early rock 'n' roll/swing/jazz vibes throughout the album. Louis's looseness and playfulness are what really sell it here; it feels close to a live performance, which is what gives the tracks their energy. Quite enjoyed The Lip; Jump, Jive n' Wail; and (I'll Be Glad When You're Dead) You Rascal You.

Banana split låten mycket rolig

This was a much needed change in genre and tone from the last few albums I have had, just a good time with some questionable lyrics. May not be my typical music I would choose but enjoyed it start to end. 5 out of 5

Good vibes, forgot how much I like the sentimental live story type of music

This is a very funky album. It's got a nice swing to it.

Classic, energetic, fun and funny.

Prima is fantastic here, but honestly, when isn't he fantastic? 500/5

Sublime 50s music

The thing about Louis Prima is that he would just say whatever, even if it was just sounds. (Complimentary.)

this is one of the funnest albums I've ever heard.

It almost feels impossible to have as much infectious dancing energy this album has. Chock full of hits and we'll known songs, and a lot to enjoy from both a vocal and instrumental perspective. Easy to enjoy, and perfectly succinct. Top tracks: Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody; Jump, Jive, An' Wail; Buona Sera