Grin hell! This freakin' CD kicks so much ass I was laughing. Literally! One of, if not the, best new band release I've had the pleasure of airing. A real smoker. Heaven sent. The scene sorely needs more bands like this that are right down the pipe.

- Jeff Parker, KAAT 103.1

If you want to talk about authentic, check out the meticulous care and devotion this six-piece swing band puts into the 20 tunes on The Swing Session. Vocalist Peter "Pops" Walsh is a journeyman who performed with Seatrain and Pacific Gas & Electric, and played bass for Lou Reed in the Tots and the original version of the Rock & Roll Animal band. This is not like any of those groups; Walsh's voice brings a smooth authority to the vintage music produced with reverence by drummer Bowen Brown. On "That Night" - the story about the Rhythm Club burning to the ground and the musicians finding themselves out of work - the horn just erupts and soars. These gentlemen perform with elegance when necessary, Scott Lawrence opening "Out West" with piano that once backed Country Joe MacDonald. The band journeyed to Boston in the summer of 2001 behind this recording, and the twenty-something kids coming out of nowhere to pack a hall and dance to this music from a time gone by just adds to the validity. Jewel Records put the CD inside a nice, ecologically sound non-jewel box, with cool photos of the band, a grinning pic of Walsh at the microphone, and a look right out of the big-band era. The material is culled from the repertoires of Doc Pomus, Doc Sausage, Joe Liggins, Louis Jordan, Tiny Grimes, and others, with six titles from "Little" David Rose, all of it brimming with precision and heart. In a world that embraces the "tribute" CD, with bands reconstructing the Bee Gees, T. Rex, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and whomever, the Swing Session's veteran musicians take on some real classics. The skill required to pull this off is enormous, and do Walsh and his crew ever pull it off! Rusty Zinn and Jerry Cortez put guitar on 13 of the 20 tracks, but aren't listed as members of the group. This disc has the potential to bring this style to a whole new generation of fans.

- Joe Viglione, Allmusic.com

The Swing Session has more jump than a kangaroo convention. Covers of tunes by Roy Milton, Lucky Millinder, Louis Jordan, Tiny Grimes, Louis Prima and Joe Liggins don't overpower the originals. The combo rips, from the hard-riffing of Tim Hyland's trumpet and Erv Ervin's sax through Scott Lawrence's piano and the super-swingin' rhythm section of Bowen Brown on drums and Little David on bass. Peter Walsh's vocals are sure and unaffected - just plain C-O-O-L, like the rest of this platter.

- Tim Hyslop, Blues Revue Magazine

This Bay Area band not only has its'40s fashion down cold, but delivers some jumpin', hard shufflin' blues-imbued swing sounds in the tradition of such period favorites as Louis Jordan and the Tympani Five, Joe Liggins and the Honeydrippers, and Roy Milton and the Solid Senders. The Swing Session renders selections by those artists, along with others by Tiny Bradshaw, Jack McVea, Joe Houston, Louis Prima, Doc Sausage, and Lucky Millinder and more than a few very authentic-sounding originals by the bandleader, bassist Little David Rose, on its excellent new self-titled CD. Peter Walsh's warm, scratchy tenor voice recalls that of onetime Glen Miller sideman Tex Beneke, while Jeff Ervin contributes some very virile, fat-toned tenor saxophone.

- Lee Hildebrand, East Bay Express

The Swing Session is one of those bands that I not only enjoy seeing live and playing on my show, but also have in the CD player in my car. They are definetely one of my favorite bands on my playlist.

- Joe Romagna, KABL 960 AM

Whispering Grass: This ain't no novelty band. This is a sextet of swing survivors, with flawless horns, bouncing boogie woogie piano, and Pop Walsh, whose lead vocals nail the soulful, swaggering, yet vulnerable early Ray Charles. With both originals and covers in the jitterbug and jive styles, there's the playfulness that comes with Cab Calloway and Louis Prima. These boys are the full package - from their big small band sound, to their threads, to the faux-vintage photographs in the replica packaging of the CD.

- Dan Dion, San Francisco Weekly

Whispering Grass: Harkening back to the Swing Era, this new CD from The Swing Session is a jitterbug party waiting to happen. With both original and classic tunes from the pens of Joe Liggins, Louis Jordan and the team of Creamer/Layton, The Swing Session creates an image of zoot suits, all night dances and big brassy bands. This band is only a sextet -- featuring the hip vocal styles of Peter "Pops" Walsh, Jeff Ervin on the big Texas tenor, and Tim "Happy" Hyland on trumpet -- but collectively they manage to sound like a 1940's style big band. Rhythm guitar is provided by guests Rusty Zinn and Tony Marcus. Song titles include "My Heart Belongs to You," "Cherry," "Saxawoogie," "Jumpin' in the Morning," and "Dear Old Southland," among others. It's a lot of fun and well executed; as noted on the disc's playlist, "Every Cut a Gem!"

- Michael Handler, JazzWest.com

Of all the modern bands that revive the jump swing of Louis Jordan and Louis Prima, The Swing Session is my favorite. They capture the fun, the energy, the style - the whole megilla. Though they don't make a fuss about it, their playing is authentic to the nth degree. They know that a relaxed groove at a moderate volume can swing harder than the pumped up, rock-flavored versions most neo-bands play. They can fire up a dance floor and keep it simmering all night, as their popularity with dancers proves.Best of all, in Pops Walsh they have a soulful, gritty, lived-in voice with the authority to sing the blues. When Pops tells ya, you stay told! The Swing Session is on the short 'must-have' list of modern swing CDs.

- Bill Elliott, The Bill Elliot Swing Orchestra

Swing somehow continues to thrive despite numerous misguided attempts to reinvent it in a modern context. The Swing Session demonstates just how adhereing to a relatively purist musical stance can work in one's favor. With a nice selection of standards as well as inspired originals, they have gathered 16 vocal and instrumental cuts on Whispering Grass. The band is red hot cool with a straight ahead rhythm section that seemingly never tires. The vocals by Peter "Pops" Walsh, are right on. Standouts include "April in Arkinsas," "Give and Take" and...well, they're all great. As for the packaging, the liner notes are a little difficult to read on their dark background, but the sepia-toned photos are quite a nice touch. This is a silky smooth collection that'll urge you onto the dance floor.

- Linda Paulson, Cool & Strange Music Magazine

Listen up: There's swingers that knows how to jump, jive and wail 'cause they learnt it from tee-vee. Then there's players like the alley cats in The Swing Session who knows how to do it 'cause they been livin' it since before the dawn of television. Their swing sessions ain't the stuff of highfalutin' society gigs. Instead it's the after-hours sound -- like the Kansas City Five's famed wee-hour jams -- when everybody shows up to blow hard or dance the night away.

- Rob Pratt, Metro Santa Cruz

The Swing Session: In the hoards of modern Jump/Blues bands out there, no other band stands out like The Swing Session. Why? Clean, tight, and accurate music by musicians who love what they do, and boy does it show. It takes a lot for a Jump/Blues album to fit into my collection of pre-'45 swing era material, but this CD easily found a spot. Particular favorites of mine are: 'Out West' for the great boogie playing; 'Spooks Holiday' for its unique sound and strong 'chug'; and 'L.A. Hop' for the wonderful solos that really showcase just how good the individual band members are. GREAT, GREAT, GEM OF A BAND!!!

- Reuben Brown, JiveJunction.Com

Even more elegantly packaged than the previous disc, with an eight-page cardboard foldout holding a gorgeous Rico Solinas cover painting, Whispering Grass by the Swing Session helps solidify this group's position as one of the early 2000s' most authentic purveyors of this musical style called swing. Bill Milkowski's annotated history of Jive, the book Swing It, and dance hops sprouting up with twenty-somethings discovering music their great-grandparents once enjoyed are evidence that the sounds on this CD have swung back into vogue. "Little" David Rose, not to confuse him with David Rose, the author of The Stripper, gives listeners two pages of essays inside this package, which comes with an additional glossy page containing the play list, times, and songwriters. There's a plethora of information about the creation and development of all 16 tracks worth reading. The project also has exquisite black-and-white photos which look like they were taken during the filming of L.A. Confidential. Peter "Pops" Walsh is in great voice, as his five bandmates and two guest rhythm guitarists give him a platform to express himself and bring these songs to life. Scott Lawrence's piano sounds wonderfully muffled in "Jumpin' in the Mornin'," but it gets to dance in your ears as it trades with the horns on the instrumental "Dear Old Southland." Jewel Records splashes "every cut a gem" on the play list, and that's no hype; the two-and-a-half to four minute tunes are smooth and producer/drummer Bowen Brown gets high marks for keeping it all so genuine. The band takes the arrangements of Erskine Hawkins and the Ink Spots to create one of their own for the title track, "Whispering Grass," adding to that tune's legacy and hopefully helping it find a new audience. Walsh takes Wynonie Harris' "I Feel That Old Age Coming On" and works with trumpet player Tim Hyland to give that song the respect it deserves, a reverence the Swing Session give to every song they put to tape. They do it so well that the album Whispering Grass has the potential to introduce these sounds to people who otherwise wouldn't know where to find this great music. "Flunky" concludes the party with Jeff Ervin's tenor sax going crazy, a performance that should garner this bunch the soundtrack to L.A. Confidential part two, or just about any celluloid endeavor looking for the real thing to jump out of the speakers.

- Joe Viglione, Allmusic.com

Whispering Grass is the second super-sophisticated retro slab from The Swing Session. Four of bassist David Rose's compositions fit snugly into a set that positions stompers from Wynonie Harris and Ray Charles opposite the sublime "My Heart Belongs to You," sung with flair by Pops Walsh. Louis Jordan and Joe Liggins are other inspirations for the Session, whose sound relies on Scott Lawrence's piano, Happy Hyland's trumpet, and, in particular, Erv Ervin's saxophone -- the band doesn't even carry a guitarist, though Tony Marcus and Rusty Zinn provide four-to-the-bar comping.

- Tim Hyslop, Blues Revue Magazine

The new Swing Session CD Whispering Grass is beyond great. I've been playing a cut on every show. The first time I played it on the air I said "every cut is a gem" and lo and behold there was the same statement on the cover of the album. Well in this case it is not mere puffery. Every cut is indeed a gem. This is eminently listenable music that takes one back to the early days of Rock & Roll, as it developed out of the swing and jump swing music of the late 40's and early 50's. The choice of material is superb. Swing Session has a knack for unearthing those long forgotten, but nonetheless magnificent musical gems that keep your feet moving. Get this CD. You'll thank me.

- Swing City Sam, WGBB AM 1240 - Freeport, Long Island, New York

Stompy Jones was the title of a Duke Ellington jump number first recorded by the Ellington full orchestra in 1934. Subsequently, in 1936, a seven-piece unit of Ellington and his men recorded the tune as Barney Bigard and his Jazzopators. Ellington used the song accompanied by his full orchestra often in performance during the swing era cutting perhaps his finest version of the song in 1956. Duke and Johnny Hodges also used it in sextet form on their Side By Side release in 1959. Regardless of how you dissect it in relation to Jazz history; the tune comes up Jazz Jump, just like the band that now sports the title of the classic.

Stompy Jones recorded its debut release under the Jewel Records banner in January of 1999 under its former name The Swing Session. While the former name of the band and the year of its initial release may smack to some of a garage group of mediocre rockers who added a few horns to capitalize on the latest dance fad; such is not the case with this group of Jazz stalwarts. The backbone of the band, bass man Little David Rose and drummer Bowen Brown, formed the group after recording in the San Francisco Bay Area band Indigo Swing. Sadly, after their departure, Indigo Swing steadily deteriorated (in regards to Jazz output) and it was no surprise when it became defunct a short while later.

Brown and Rose have continued to swing on and thrive in their present setting in Stompy Jones. Consummate Jazz players Tim Hyland on trumpet and Jeff Ervin on reeds augment the group both instrumentally and (along with Rose and Brown) add to the band vocally much as the musicians in Jimmie Lunceford's band did during the Swing era. While not polished vocalists, in the crooner sense, their vocal ensemble work provides a hip and complimentary backdrop to the blues vocal stylings of Peter Walsh. The appearance and demeanor of the rotund and jovial "Pops," as he is known, belies his ability to deliver both blues vocals and ballads in a style truly his own. "Pops" sound is somewhat guttural like Louis Armstrong but as smooth as Joe Williams, as jumpin' as Louis Prima, as hip as Mose Allison and as suave as Dean Martin. If you can imagine all these vocalists rolled up into one with the appearance of Jimmy Rushing; you got "Pops" Walsh.

On their debut release under the Stompy Jones headline these genuflectors of Jumpin' Jazz swing through seventeen tunes, six of which are originals. Several of the cover tunes are done in a style altogether different than one could fathom. The tune "Dream" for instance (written by Johnny Mercer and a hit for Tommy Dorsey And The Pied Pipers) is normally cast as a "snuggle up" ballad, but not for this band; it is done rather in the style that one would imagine Louis Prima and Sam Butera And The Witnesses creating, complete with shuffle rhythm (originally popularized by Jan Savitt) and melodic background vocals ala The Witnesses.

On the instrumental "Rug Cutter's Swing" (originally in the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra band-book but also recorded by the Glenn Miller Orchestra) the sextet relies on its talent of creating a big sound with a masterful arrangement and some high-spirited trumpet blowing by Tim Hyland with Jeff Ervin doubling on alto and tenor.

In the late 1930s bass-man John Kirby formed a sextet that Duke Ellington called The Biggest Little Band In The Land. The group had some of the greats of the period in its ranks including Russell Procope, Buster Bailey and all-star trumpet man Charlie Shavers who wrote the tune "Close Shave". It is a monumental statement about the musicianship of Stompy Jones that they even attempt to cover this John Kirby Sextet flag waver; let alone cover it with such vigor, talent, and passion that one is treated simply to an "in stereo" extension of the original three minute masterpiece.

Perhaps our favorite songs on the release are originals (and fun tunes at that) delivered in the inimitable vocal style of Pops Walsh. "That Wig's Gotta Go" is a humorous look at the aging process and what some women will go through to attempt to look young in their own heads. This spoof on an "extreme make-over" gone bad is highlighted by the early Ray Charles type piano backing of Scott Lawrence on eighty-eights. "That's Earl, Brother" is written around a slang statement popular during the 1950s and possibly coined after the Dizzy Gillespie instrumental of the same name waxed in 1946. This medium tempo bouncer is not the same song as the Diz recording of "That's Earl, Brother" and if I dare say is much easier to sink your teeth intoŠ.as well as shuffle to on the dance floor.

These are just a few examples of the extreme delight it is to hear a band performing songs like these and doing it with a sense of rhythm, taste and musicianship par excellence. Although we were delighted with the Swing Session's two releases we highly encourage you to give this disc by Stompy Jones a listen. Its Earl, brother!

- Jeff Parker, KAAT 103.1

Stompy Jones is the band formerly known as The Swing Session revisiting, as the liner notes declare "the sounds and rhythms of the 1930's through the early 1950's". The third album released by this ensemble since 1999, averaging one every two years, the self-titled Stompy Jones, is every bit as exciting and well crafted as its predecessors, The Swing Session and Whispering Grass. Drummer Bowen Brown does a fab job of producing this period piece material recorded in April of 2003 at Bay Records in Berkeley, California. Bassist/vocalist "Little David" Rose puts together another exquisite package with his chores as art director and the pen behind the liners. There's nice tension in "That Wig's Gotta Go", one of the five Rose originals on this seventeen selection disc, as dramatic as his "Can't Find My Baby" with its growling horn. Peter "Pops" Walsh is commanding in his new life as vocalist - the extraordinary session man for Lou Reed, Pacific Gas & Electric and others comfortably putting a soulful feel over the band's tight instrumental arrangements. These gents are purists taking a version of Louis Jordan's "Knock Me A Kiss" from 1942 and lovingly re-presenting it to the world after much study. Johnny Mercer's "Dream" is uptempo and fun while the instrumental "Juke Box Judy", a 1944 classic, gives the band a chance to flex their respective muscles. Bassist/vocalist Little David Rose puts together another exquisite package with his extra chores as art director and the pen behind the liners with commentary that is as fun to read as it is informative. The essential music is so perfectly played by industry veterans it is -- and this is not hyperbole -- deserving of a Grammy.

- Joe Viglione, Allmusic.com