Whether its changing tastes or racial politics or what, the Boswell Sisters have a raw deal in their home town. New Orleans which celebrates its past, especially its jazz past, to a sometimes shameless degree has, it seems, forgotten the close harmony style of the Boswell’s. And that’s a shame, not only because of the enormous influence they had (Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, the Andrews Sisters), but because its a damn pleasure to listen to their music, not only for their imaginative vocal style but for their deft use of some of the finest jazz players of the day as accompanists, the likes of the Dorsey Brothers, Eddie Lang, Bunny Berigan and Joe Venuti.
Thankfully the Pfister Sisters have not forgotten the Boswells and pay tribute to their inimitable legacy on the new compact disc All’s Well That’s Boswell. The Pfisters (Holly Bendtsen, Yvette Voelker-Cuccia and Suzy Malone (who has since left the band and replaced by Debbie Davis) were formed over 20 years ago as tribute to the singing sisters. Their first recording won the NAIRD Best Women’s Music award. That disc mixed Boswell numbers with more contemporary New Orleans-flavored tunes. Here, with the exception of the opening track “St. Louis Blues,” they perform Boswell Sisters arrangements throughout, backed by an “all New Orleans” group that includes pianist Amassa Miller, Charlie Miller on trumpet, clarinetist Tim Laughlin and trombonist Craig Klein among others, who all do a fine job negotiating the wild mid-song tempo changes that might occur within a single number (one of the hallmarks of the Boswell style of which “Crazy People” is a fine example), and otherwise give sympathetic backing to the Pfister’s vocal work on the material offered here. All of tunes were originally recorded by the Boswells between 1929 and 1934, however two were used as accompaniment to films and those arrangements are presented on record for the first time—“When its Sleepytime Down South,” which the Pfisters lifted from a bouncing ball cartoon from 1931, and the “Close Farm-ony” medley, also from 1931, which is derived from the Boswell’s first cinematic performance and is an inspired bit of depression era nonsense that includes the line “ You know that hens lay eggs and sheep give wool, everybody’s doing his bit, cow don’t be a bull-shevik.”
The Pfisters should be commended for exposing the many styles of the Boswells, from their use of the secret “gibberish” language on “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If it Ain’t Got That Swing),” to their early use of the Latin rhythms (“Don’t Let Your Love Go Wrong”), and thanked for preserving the Boswells’ formidable legacy. If even one person is inspired by this recording to discover the originals on which it is based, then the Pfister Sisters have done this town a great service.
