The romance! The glamour! The Louise Brooks movies and the bootleg champagne! The whole world teetering on the precipice, spinning faster and faster toward the horrible oblivion of war war WAR! The 1920s were a mad, dazzling time. And who better than Professional Dapper Man Bryan Ferry to bring the swingin’ sounds of the era back in a “totally not another swing revival” way? The Roxy Music frontman and solo dude has assembled the finest ensemble of Roarin’ 20s-style musical players and created The Bryan Ferry Orchestra, who’ll be releasing their first album, The Jazz Age through BMG. You can check out a short promo video for track “Do the Strand” below. It’s enough to make Baz Luhrman cry.
In what sounds like a wedding band dreamed up by Andy Kaufman, the Bryan Ferry Orchestra exclusively plays — as you may have guessed from the tracklisting — covers of Bryan Ferry-penned songs in a 1920s manner. Ferry doesn’t perform or sing with the orchestra, instead standing to the side, nodding his head, dreaming of a green light at the end of a dock and sighing as he sips bathtub gin.
The Jazz Age tracklisting:
01. Do the Strand
02. Love Is the Drug
03. Don’t Stop the Dance
04. Just Like You
05. Avalon
06. The Bogus Man
07. Slave to Love
08. This Is Tomorrow
09. The Only Face
10. I Thought
11. Reason or Rhyme
12. Virginia Plain
13. This Island Earth
• Bryan Ferry: http://www.bryanferry.com
• BMG: http://www.bmg.com