Album: Grapefruit Moon, Southside Johnny with LaBamba's Big Band

Supported by a huge horn section playing the superb arrangements of Richie "La Bamba" Rosenberg, Southside Johnny's voice takes on a majestic quality which brings a new nobility to the Tom Waits & Kathleen Brennan songs covered here.

On "Yesterday Is Here", the trenchant tone of the original is replaced by a more blithe delivery that's progressively swept up in the gathering momentum of the big-band arrangement; "Tango Till They're Sore" takes on a brash New Orleans flavour, and there's a Naked City-style noir swagger to the stalking piano groove of "All The Time In The World".

Elsewhere, "Temptation" receives a brisk salsa injection halfway through, and most impressively, there's a cool, Steely Dan slickness to "Down, Down, Down", an effortless virtuosity about the way its dense arrangement treads so lightly.