Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
“If it ain’t got that swing then it don’t mean a thing…” If it’s not The Fresh Dixie Project, then whatever it could be is an obvious pale imitation of something so right that deep down you know you could be headed for booking up confession sessions a few months in advance. Failing that you will be listening to five young lads give such an imaginative display on the scale of seeing an exhibition of a man swagger and swerve temptation as he strides along Oxford Street with a thousand pounds in his pocket and defying expectation, passes into the hands of a local homeless woman.
Both are priceless, both images capture the imagination. One perhaps very unlikely but the other, The Fresh Dixie Project at its bouncing dramatic best, bringing such wonderful truth and honesty to their E.P. Dress Pretty, Dance Ugly. The sound, not lost in the neighborhoods of Chicago, the boroughs that insect the congested street map and which feels the heat of well blown Saxophone as keenly as it welcomes the first days of spring and the cold coming of Lake Michigan retreating to its Northern home, is wild, so wonderfully untamed and full of enticement. So much so that Benny Goodman would be rising from out his final resting place and snapping his fingers in eager anticipation for the next song.
Dress Pretty, Dance Ugly is passionate; an encounter with the love of your life or dancing all night along the banks of The Mersey as the moon shines down lovingly upon the Three Graces couldn’t hold more of a spellbinding attraction. The tone employed by Jamie Johnson’s vocals, Ben Golding’s keys, Jamie Biles’ guitar, Mark Gilyead’s drums and Michael Jarman’s saxophone is one of natural sophistication, of a garden allowed to flourish unhindered and strong without a set of secateurs in sight. The tracks progress with spirit and the songs No Illusion, the superb Witch Hunt and Pay My Way bounce and spin as if cultivation would be considered a crime of upmost musical corruption.
If it swings in the 21st Century then it has be The Fresh Dixie Project, a band endeavouring to prove there is more to music than ever be truly assigned to just a few genres.
Ian D. Hall