I’ve mentioned Janet Klein And Her Parlor Boys some weeks ago and finally I have a copy of her latest (and fifth) album Oh! for a review.
Janet and her Boys are really out there on a mission. And that mission is to keep old jazz and vaudeville from the 1910s, 20s and 30s from sinking into oblivion. Even if you think you’re not into the old stuff, I recommend to pay Janet’s website a visit because here we have an enthusiastic artist totally devoted to her music and wallowing in yesteryears’s design and glory. And with five albums under her belt you can tell that’s really her and not just a clever marketing decision.
Somehow Janet seems to be beamed from the past into our present to make us aware of the beautiful songs and melodies people have written decades ago. Sometimes you hear a few of these songs while watching vintage b&w movies. Whether it be The Jazz Singer (one of the first Vitaphone movies) or movies that featured songs that later became standards like The Bad in Every Man (made famous as Blue Moon) from Manhattan Melodrama, even screwball comedies like The Awful Truth featured scenes with song performances by a (in this case not really talented) songbird, who sang My Dreams Are Gone With the Wind).
And let’s not forget the Screen Songs with the bouncing ball (something like karaoke to sing along in the cinema, Irene Bordoni singing Just A Gigolo for example) and cartoons like the early Betty Boop that featured Cab Calloway (Snow White [St. James Infirmary Blues], Minnie The Moocher, The Old Man Of The Mountain) or Louis Armstrong (I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You).
But Janet has dug much deeper. In an interview with David Reffkin she answered when asked how she finds new material: “I do collect sheet music, in a lot of cases for the beautiful graphics. From the mid-teens through the early thirties, every piece of sheet music, practically, had ukulele arrangements. I mostly work out things from listening to old recordings. Many of these tunes were not particularly meant to be played on ukulele. What works really well are the nice verses, the little prologues to the songs. Along the way the verses came to be considered corny. By the Forties, nobody bothered with these verses. But for me, they’re perfect to be performed rubato…out of time and they set up a story and are great for the ukulele.”
(By the way, the Duke University gives us an impression what Janet may have meant with the beautiful graphics).
It’s not only Janet, her singing and her ukulele that bring the old songs back to live. Her Parlor Boys are equally important. With cornet, upright bass, piano, guitar, trombone, sousaphone, mandolin, banjo or accordion amongst others the Parlor Boys provide the perfect musical background.
If you listen closer to the songs there’s one thing that may be the most obvious difference to most of today’s music and that is that the writers of songs like That’s Love, Ida, I Do or Rebecca Came Back From Mecca really cared about the language they used and loved to play with it. The catchy That’s Love (written by Ray Henderson and Lew Brown) for example is a swinging song that’s really funny with its menagerie of comparisons (”When the bull looks at a cow, says eventually ‘Why not now’/ Ladies and gentlemen, that’s love/…/When the toucan at the zoo do what only two can do, Ladies and gentleman, that’s love“). Rebecca Came Back From Mecca features some racy lyrics about a quite emancipated young woman who spend two years in a Sultan’s harem and came back full of new ideas (”And since she got back from the harem/ She’s got clothes, but she don’t wear them.“) [Here’s a longer explanation of this song]
Baltimore is another highlight here. This song by Jimmy McHugh is really a great dance song with a memorable melody.
Sweet Man is one of my favourite tunes with Janet accompanied by the piano only. Here she impersonate the ever true and loyal lover (”He’s as true as I would expect him to be/ And he sees only me/ It’s true, I know, cause he told me so.“)
The daring I’m Busy And You Can’t Come In (originally from 1928) is another fine example that the 1920s were in some way more liberated then the decades that followed. Even today most people may feel a little puzzled if a woman tells you she’s busy rigth now with another.
With nineteen songs on offer there are actually too much to mention every song here. But believe me they are all worthwile and Oh! is a real lovely designed treasure box of long forgotten songs.

Tracklisting of Oh!: 1. Oh!/ 2. Concentratin’ On You/ 3. When the World Is At Rest/ 4. That’s Love/ 5. Baltimore/ 6. Ida I Do/ 7. Who-oo You-oo That’s Who!/ 8. Mon Ami Perdu/ 9. Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me/ 10. Undecided Now/ 11. Sweet Man/ 12. Hello Bluebird/ 13. Little Coquette/ 14. I’m Busy and You Can’t Come In/ 15. Lonesome and Sorry/ 16. Butterflies In the Rain/ 17. If You Hadn’t Gone Away/ 18. Rebecca Came Back from Mecca/ 19. When? | released 2006 Coeur de Jeanette

For more infos visit janetklein.com and cdbaby.com.

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