Then there is the STYLE of jazz he has chosen. It's like we came partly out of Benny Goodman late '30s swing, but also into combo jamming of the '50s. The studio sound conspires with musicianship to really give the document quite the personality. It's uplifting and bouncy. Nostalgic, yes, but also craftsmanship toward love of the precious.

The guitarist's evolution is really quite natural because after the J. Geils Band success (when harmonica player Magic Dick and Geils went on to form "Bluestime," a group playing Chicago post-war blues), Geils' love for music he first encountered during his New Jersey childhood was required almost by accident. The rehearsing group stumbled onto some jazz chord changes and Jay realized he needed better chops so went to the woodshed to do more serious practicing.

In various print articles, Geils explained his heretofore unknown involvement with jazz: "I first heard guitarist Charlie Christian from Goodman records when I was 10, thanks to my father. He took me to see Louis Armstrong and the All-Stars when I was 12, for which I am eternally grateful. I played trumpet and wanted to be Armstrong, but one thing led to another. Then there was the J. Geils Blues Band, which became a rock band, breaking up in 1984. Even before then I'd played with Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Muddy Waters and other blues men. Then, in the early '90s, I decided to take the next step and really get back into the Charlie Christian thing."

His sidemen here include well-known tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton and lesser-known reedman Greg Piccolo of the group Roomful Of Blues. Others are numerous and more obscure but the rhythm section deserves high marks for a mature job. This is a delicate music that requires feeling, and the drummer is wonderfully caressing without dragging. There are several cuts using a Hammond B3 organ to lay down the bass line. Two other guitarists appear and also take solos so hang on to your hat trying to keep track. One of them also plays mandolin and a "console steel" guitar, kind of Hawaiian. It made me think for the first time in years of Alvino Rey of the '50s, who played a kind of "talking" guitar (really more pop than jazz in his time).

The repertoire is all-classic, with varied works by people like Peggy Lee, Bill Doggett, Mel Powell, Johnny Hodges, Ellington, Clifford Brown, and Roland Kirk. To really sum up Jay Geils' sound on this CD, I blindfold tested an unsuspecting layperson: "Is it Wes Montgomery?" This is another in a series of releases on the Canadian Stony Plain label which seems to be run by, and for, good-taste guitarists. Other releases in the series are New Guitar Summit (with Duke Robillard and Gerry Beaudoin) and Ronnie Earl Meets Duke Robillard. Sufficient distribution remains questionable, but internet availability at the label's website is valuable. This is a music which will probably never be widely identified with the name Jay Geils due to his past success (he incidentally also restored high-performance foreign cars after his rock band split), but he is to be commended for following his gut and acting on his musical passion to share it with those of like-minded interest. It is hoped he can also enjoy some live performance work with this kind of thing.