Give Me Your Telephone Number

Album Review

The Pennsylvania-based Boilermaker Jazz Band named their seventh album Give Me Your Telephone Number after a song recorded for the OKeh record label in February 1930 by trombonist J.C. Higginbotham & His Six Hicks, a scaled-down edition of the Luis Russell Orchestra. This is entirely appropriate as trombonists Jay Cosentino and Gerry Gagnon firmly anchor the band throughout the proceedings and are especially impressive on the title track. Paul Cosentino is the leader of this fine hot jazz and swing band, and he ought to be proud of this particular offering, as it might well be the strongest album the Boilermakers have given listeners so far. Certainly the group sounds tighter and more "well oiled" than it did on Honky Tonk Town, which was originally released on Biograph in 1997. That album conveyed the impression that this was a homey little Dixieland band with a tendency to swing like the dickens. Give Me Your Telephone Number is more substantial and reveals the workings of an ensemble that has clearly attained new heights of collective excellence.