Swing music is back, as anyone who follows the music industry knows. Unfortunately most of the neo-swingsters seem to pursue a narrow segment. of that idiom, concentrating primarily on the Louis Jordan-style jump band music that began rock and roll.

At the other end of the swing spectrum, both chronologically and stylistically, are people like Banu Gibson. A singer who began her career as a 1920s New Orleans hot jazz performer, Gibson has segued naturally into a fine interpreter of 1930s swing material. The band she’s assembled over the last 15 years is a splendid group of musical archivists who have probably listened to and analyzed every significant jazz recording between 1917 and 1935. Pianist David Boeddinghaus, trumpeter Duke Heitger and reedman Tom Fischer deserve special mention for capturing the spirit of brilliant improvisers like Satchmo, Teddy Wilson and Lester Young.

Love is Good for Anything That Ails You is representative of Banu’s last few CDs: a handful of standards, with verses (“As Time Goes By”, “My Ideal”), and quite a few tunes you’ve never heard and probably won’t ever hear again. The tunes are tasty, the band executes the arrangements smartly, and Banu soars above it all. She’s a natural singer.

Gibson hasn’t had a home base in town for a few years, but that will change in late December with the opening in the French Quarter of Levon Helm’s Classic American Cafe. It will be great to hear her around these parts again on a regular basis.