Gloryland

There are a lot of trad jazz revivalist acts out there. The LA-based seven-piece California Feetwarmers are one of many young acts happily mixing up ragtime, trad and Dixieland jazz with brassy aplomb, bringing the sounds of 1920s New Orleans to festival audiences. While they are all enjoyable enough, the instrumental tracks here don't exactly leap out. They have a lot of swing and make all the right noises but it's the vocal numbers that really dollop up the trad jazz charm.

Lead singer duties are split between cornet player Charles De Castro, clarinettist Joshua Kaufman, guitarist Juan Carlos Reynoso and trombonist Justin Rubenstein. ‘I Got Dreams’ features a hangdog vocal that fits the song's hard-luck shuffle like a worn but well-cut zoot suit. Wheezing pump organ adds some Tom Waits-style pathos; it would make the perfect soundtrack to a love scene in a Harold Lloyd silent movie. ‘Short Dressed Gal’ brings a perfectly judged gruff blues falsetto lead; ‘No Vacancy’ shows off impeccable ensemble call-and-response harmonies. Jerron ‘Blind Boy’ Paxton is guest lead vocalist on ‘Rock Away Blues’ and his knowing but period-perfect throaty singing coaxes a specially eccentric energy out of the whole group. He rejoins them on ‘Drifting Back to Dreamland’ in balladeer mode, his drunken-sounding crooning matched by woozy horns and fluttering harmonica. My feet are well and truly smokin'.