Taking No J Street Prisoners                                     by Gary Chew - Sacramento   October 15, 2011

You'd never know it but, Louis Prima, Jr. is a very serious man. I thought he might not be that way after my being next to some of his dad's very jumping and jiving music over the decades.

I listened to his father's music, and played it on my record shows, as well. Yes, I'm sure there are very few people who don't remember Louis Sr., and Keely Smith burning-up the room with “I Got You Under My Skin,” “That Old Black Magic” and “When the Saints Go Marching In,” to name only three.

All seriousness aside: Louis Jr. with singer Sarah Siegle and the Witnesses, do music that, if it were tooling down I-80, would come straight at you like a ten-ton truck: no slowing down and always rendered in an absolute full-bore performance. No prisoners taken tonight at Harlow's.

Actually, Louis Jr. is only serious about having a good time.  And what made this good time cool was...Prima's bass man wore a circa 1958 Frank Sinatra hat. Then there's Louis' drummer who can do Mick Jagger, singing “Can't Get No Satisfaction” better than Keith Richards.

The son had nice words about h is famous father, too. And the guys and lovely gal also did two standards composed by Louis Prima, “I Want a Sunday Kind of Love” and “Sing, Sing, Sing.”

I don't want to take anything away from the great drummer, Gene Krupa, but Mr. Krupa might not have been as famous at what he did so well if Louis Prima hadn't written that tune Benny Goodman put very much on everybody's map.

At the close, I got the feeling that Louis Prima, Jr. and his ensemble felt good doing their Vegas-esque show in the Capital City of California. I think the cat would like to come back to Sac and drive his really solid, tight, ten-ton truck right up J Street---spilling joyous music all over our clean, pretty sidewalks.

The only thing that might have been questionable about tonight at Harlow's is that...everybody probably had way too much fun.