Black Lace

Black Lace is astonishingly retro, with its chugging guitar riff that propels almost every song and no-nonsense instrumental rock & roll approach to standards like "Stardust" and "Begin the Beguine." If the album had been made six or eight years earlier, practically nothing about the material or presentation would have been any different. Black and his combo change their tack only on "Sugar Blues," the old Clyde McCoy hit, and "South," both of which are slow and jazzy but with the ever-present chugging guitar in the background. All of the songs are pop and jazz oldies, performed crisply on saxophone and organ with muscular rock backing. By stubbornly plying their obsolete instrumental rock & roll sound into the late '60s and continuing to play old pop and jazz tunes, the Bill Black Combo reach a bizarre place where it is easier to imagine jazz listeners embracing their music than rock & rollers.