THE KINGSIZE FIVE
MIGHTY MEATY BIG & BRASSY

The Kingsize Five might be the only jazz band with enough spirit, attitude and talent to replace The Clash in the public imagination. They are the blues played rough and loud, jazz without cloying reverence, and enough insight to cut through the crap. No musician but Billy Jenkins can match them for pluck, drive and massive talent. This band has a deep understanding of the blues era that kicks the crap out of all the impressive crossover ditties of other jazz-based bands. For an antecedent, I'd have to go back to the Chicago of Gene Krupa, Cab Calloway's big band with Dizzy Gillespie and Ben Webster. and even then it might take Joe Strummer to bring the attitude up to snuff.

K5 has range with enough drive and cutting humor to avoid the damning back handed slap of the label "impressive." This is a big nasty fun danceable band with enough chaotic force to storm the barricades of any meaningful musical category. Their chick singers have the swing and swagger of The B-52s' party girls. There's a posted song worthy of Eric Idle from The Life of Brian. There's life in this music. This band could steal hearts on stage with Gogol Bordello without the gimmicks. Whatever your musical taste, if you can handle a little life in your music, this band won't disappoint you. When's the last time you got more than you bargained for? Take a chance, Cecil!

The K5 have chosen the image of a punch drunk fighter bloodied by the battle as their moniker. There's not a hint of folk in their assault on precious values and earnest half-hearted do-gooder tokenism. These songs have the intelligence to wound the paper-thin veneer we've come to accept as normal, without that too-clever-by-half nonsense we've been soaking in. Jazz from the "God Must Be The Boogie Man" world of Charles Mingus may be as close as it comes to the bite of K5.

Pound for pound this is the best jazz band on the pop circuit. If you don't happen to live in London, the next best thing are the four songs below available on iTunes. July 14, 2008 is the first opportunity to take home a copy of the single "One For My Daddy." These tunes sound as good as live. That's no mean feat, and well beyond the ability of most recording bands.

THE SONGS:




ONE FOR MY DADDY is a big nasty loving kick in the pants for the boozy old brick. This may not be a Father's Day favorite, but there's as much love as truth in this song of intervention. In better days, this favorite son could "fill a stadium or two" with what he could do, but now he's "in a stupor limp and loose." That descent qualifies as tragedy and warrants a biblical reference: "Joseph where's your many hues?" Old Joe of Genesis 32 suffered from siblings as much for grandiose dreams as for that colorful coat. Doubtless this drunken patriarch has stories of past glory and pipe dreams from the barstool. A folk song would just be reason to do a little more crying in the beer. The Kingsize Five serve up a needed slap with jumpin' jazz like Cab Calloway's "Jitter Bug" played with Krupa on skins and encouragement played nasty and fast by prickly, pointy paired horns. "You got a lot more reason to live, Daddy, and a lot less reason to fall . . . I want to see your contribution and I want to see it all." In the words of the song and that most often misquoted Joseph Addison adage: "He who hesitates will lose." This jazz intervention song could rouse the punch drunk Daddy in us all. The child is the father to the man.




I AM A MISSILE climbs gravity's rainbow "on a mission" to "destroy myself" with a brash and brassy mad dash from "negative to positive." There's no hesitation in this misguided missile into the certainty of explosive self-destruction. It's as much fun as watching Slim Pickens as Major "King" Kong riding the bomb with his cowboy hat in hand in Dr. Strangelove. It must be some consolation to know your future will go out with a big bang. This song has charted on BBC radio and has a quirky charm that you can dance to with unambiguous abandon. With a sense of humor more arch and ironic, it rivals Randy Newman's "Political Science" in pluck and circumstance. Hang onto your headphones, it's going to be a bumpy ride!




A VERY SERIOUS ARTIST cuts up the would-be saviors in pop culture with ironic wit worthy of Phil Ochs' "Love me, I'm a Liberal" and horns a plenty filled with gravel and buckshot. Ms. Sheli Andrew and Zoe Alexdria lay false praise thick as cement to the philanthropic myopia of the billion dollar baby on a Lear to observe the starving. Earnest is a British put down worth adopting in the colonies. Publicity stunt photo op charity "sounds like just another prick who wants to prick our conscience." The phrase "He claims he's not religious but he seeks beatification" has never been use better in pop, rock or jazz. "He'll never get his sainthood while he's married to a crack whore." Well, that's just a great big nasty thing to say. Lord, save us from saviors.




CAPRICORN skewers the female who "wears her love behind a mask of scorn" and "keeps her lovers on a hook behind the bedroom door." The big brassy shout choruses descend into chaos behind the most creative drumkit assault since Gene Krupa. The man on the hook is happy to hang there. He's a self-styled troubadour, and likely deserves no better. Guess fire fights fire and scorn battles scorn. The Kingsize Five has more life in this song than most live bands. The vocals here show more attitude than the average croaking death metal yelp over an infectious jazzy groove. The drums drive this complaint song straight to the solar plexus. Dig that groove!