In Kenora, Ontario, two hours east of Winnipeg, if you don’t ice fish, hunt or play hockey in the winter, you play music.

Well, that might be a generalization, but having lived there for nine years, there is a lot of truth to it. And if you are Kenora sextet Big Boogaloo, it is the truth. They “Heat it Up” on their  long awaited  self titled debut CD.  

To put Big Boogaloo’s sound into a Lethbridge perspective, they sound like a trimmed down Hippodrome, with a little less disco and a lot more funk.

They play happy, good time, toe tapping music which sounds like it comes from a hot , cramped New Orleans  club, rather than  from the depths of the northern Ontario wilderness.

Darcy Ura adds some hot guitar (adding excerpts of a variety of classic rock hits on  one of the CDs standouts, “On The Radio” and a jazzy voice), Laura Cotton adds a lot of cuteness and a monster female powered pipes especially on a jazzy version of the Beatles’ “Come Together,” Bob White is a one man monster horn section tour de force, keeping the toes tapping, Rex Csuzdi adds  Caribbean percussion, and Ken Siira provides an unstoppable backbeat.

There are a lot of uptempo, funky highlights on the CD right from the start with “Funky Boogaloo,” followed by my absolute favourite “Heat It Up.” T

hey keep things heated with “Sure Looks Good To Me.”  I also like the lyrics, not to mention  Rob Lindstrom’s slinky bassline for “Still Don’t Know.”
They also have some pretty unique re-interpretations of classics like “Come Together,” “Let The Good Times Roll,” on which Laura Cotton does an outstanding job as well as on Tom Wait’s “Jockey Full of Bourbon.”
They also turn “Johnny Be Good” into a pretty groovy reggae song. Stylistically, they run the gamut between jazz and  a really cool, upbeat rock song “On The Radio.”
But either way, big Boogaloo will keep you moving.

CD: Big Boogaloo
Band: Big Boogaloo
Genre: jazz/ pop/ R and B/ World
Record label: none

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