American Music's second collection of
Wooden Joe Nicholas sides finds a few rare and unheard cuts from the 1945 and 1949 sessions that comprised their first CD from 1992, but this 2013 CD also unearths some tracks cut on other days in 1945 and 1949 (the earlier year has a handful of recordings made in
George Lewis' home on May 17 while
Wooden Joe's own home was where the July 6 and 7, 1949 material was recorded). A total of nine of the 21 tracks here are previously unreleased, while the rest are relatively hard to come by and they're all cut from the same cloth: spirited old-fashioned New Orleans jazz so straight-ahead it can sometimes seem primitive. Perhaps there isn't much technique here, but the ragged barrelheadedness is appealing as there is spirit here: it sounds like a bunch of old guys sitting around their back porch playing songs they know by heart because that is exactly what it is. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine