*** Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire

OH! THE GRANDEUR

(Rykodisc)

Five years ago, nobody would have guessed that pop music would end the 20th-century in the midst of a swing-music revival, but here we are in the midst of a full-blown rebirth of le jazz hot surrounded by sharp cats in porkpie hats and elegant-looking frails in slit skirts. One of the finest aggregations in this hip display of retro-cool is Bowl of Fire, a quartet led by Squirrel Nut Zipper pal Andrew Bird. Every player here has chops to spare, plus with the good taste to hold the grandstanding down and tailor the playing to the desired mood. On "Wait," Bird's fiddling raises a sultry cloud of smoke over Colin Bunn's sparse comped guitar chords; on "Vidalia," Bird's solo is finely balanced between klezmer melancholy and Gypsy fire and driven to the outer limits by Kevin O'Donnell's breakneck stick work. Bird is also an inventive lyricist and a creative singer with an impressive command of yesteryear's vocal styles. He can croon like Rudy Vallee, clown around, jump octaves and lay down a clever line of scat like Cab Calloway, or deliver tongue-twisting asides with the arch humor of Noël Coward.

-- J. Poet