Ultra-Lounge, Vol. 15: Wild Cool & Swingin' Tooby Anonymous

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February 05, 2004: I'm not a big fan of the Ultra-Lounge series, as their uber-hip compilations are often to kitschy for my taste. So when a friend, knowing my affinity for jazz, gave me this album, I let it sit on my shelf for two years without one thorough listen...until a few months ago, when I actually read through the interesting setlist (who else but Ultra-Lounge would pair Wayne Newton with Sarah Vaughan?) and stuck into the CD player. It hasn't left since....the album is a great mix of standards ("Just in Time" and "The Boy from Ipanema," to name a few) and outta-be-standards ("Frenesi" and "With Plenty of Money and You"). And the surprisingly random but coherent vocalists featured on the album delivers each moment with the sweet substance every cynical jazz fan would enjoy. The irony here is that "Wild, Cool, and Swingin'" is neither "wild" nor "cool" nor "swingin'" in the neo-swing, Gap-commercial fashion you might imagine. Simply, it is an excellent jazz album.