Double or Nothing

The bedrock is ska, the melodies are jazz and the color is Las Vegas Strip. I, for some reasons, have had two music heads grossly simplify ska in the last two days by telling me "it is all in the guitar." How wrong they are! We are very accustomed to guitar lead music. Ska, like its subtropical cousin reggae, is usually effected with the aid of a guitar but the lead is taken over by another instrument. In the case of reggae this is bass, in ska it is the horn(s). Unsteady gives us long, eloquent, fluid and fluent lines from, usually, trumpet, Fluglehorn or sax. Helping out is a cavalcade of brass as varied and interesting as the characters you meet on a Saturday stroll down the neon strip.