Cha Cha Loco

I imagine the world was very surprised in 1981 when Joe Jackson swerved away from the post-punk-pop that made him famous and went all jazzbo. The even bigger surprise – how awfully good at it he turned out to be. Since then he’s been all over the map musically, so it makes perfect sense that he’d excel at interpreting jazz standards and even writing his own. For many kids the various influences he channeled on Body & Soul, Jumpin’ Jive and other albums served as a gateway to the world of real jazz, salsa, tango, etc. For me, those albums showed that musical styles that usually exist in separate worlds are really an evolving continuum.