Ingrid Lucia and the Flying Neutrinos - Hotel Child (2000)

Among the swing revivalists--from the Squirrel Nut Zippers to Royal Crown Revue and Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers--no musician can chart his or her pedigree back the way singer Ingrid Lucia and bassist Todd Londagin can. As kids, the story goes, the pair were members of the Flying Neutrinos Family band, living in hotels, playing swing on rafts, and, likely, storing key data for their own Flying Neutrinos. The Hotel Child is the third effort by Lucia, Londagin, guitarist Matt Munisteri, bassist Matt Weiner, and a handful of assorted horns, drums, and accordion. Their music bumps with a sprightly step, buoyed by Lucia's early-Billie Holiday tinged voice and the band's languid looseness. Their brand of swing isn't hyped up with bombastic horn charts or even slicked up like the Zippers. It's much more relaxed, laid-back like so much music from their one-time home, New Orleans. It's got the sway of a humid afternoon woven through the lyrics, calling out for dancers in a way that's almost completely low-key. The swing's not particularly speedy or complex, but it's heartfelt and, with Lucia's voice, altogether magnetic. --Andrew Bartlett