And so, like Boyz II Men, we have reached the end of the Cutouts Gone Wild! road. This series started out innocently, with a few ridiculous paragraphs about St. Paul’s Down to the Wire album, and spun quickly out of control; now, all these years later, I’m not really sure how things got this far. Or how many hours I’ve spent listening to and writing about records nobody remembers.
Anyway, thanks to our sparkly ‘n’ shiny digital revolution, fewer and fewer albums are staying out of print these days, so the time has come to stop scraping the bottom of the commercial barrel and yield this space to a better, brighter series — one that I’m certain will quickly make all of you forget about silly old Cutouts Gone Wild!
But first, one final order of business: The collected output of late ’80s Swedish pop band/apparent Bob Fosse fetishists All That Jazz.
Never heard of them? Me neither. Or I hadn’t, anyway, before a reader named Paul Cox wrote in to request a CGW! entry devoted to the band. I normally don’t bother with requests, for the simple reason that keeping up with them can overwhelm a series, but Paul’s e-mail intrigued me — who were these guys?
Naturally, I turned to the Internet, only to discover that A) “all that jazz” isn’t the most helpful of search phrases, and B) there appears to be only one web page containing any information at all about the band. I sent an e-mail, crossed my fingers, and waited.
This is all a long, roundabout way of saying that everything I know about All That Jazz I learned from Raynfall Creations. Like the band’s bio, for instance:
After playing in various punk bands, Peter, Patrik and Per formed All That Jazz in the autumn of 1981. Strong influences at that time were British post punk bands such as Joy Division, The Cure, Bauhaus and so on. In January 1983 All That Jazz released 12″ single The Banner of Love, 1000 copies on Wire Records. On the b side was the Beatles Norwegian Wood from Rubber Soul and our own My Blue Heaven, recorded on an 8 tracks in Niklas Hellbergs dads garage.
After being signed to virgin records America, All That Jazz released the self entitled album All That Jazz in 1987 and toured Japan, Britain, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Denmark and Finland. the us tour was cancelled because one member was denied a visa for the US. Producers of the album were Langer/Winstanley who also produced Madness, Dexys Midnight Runners, Elvis Costello, Teardrop Explodes among others. Shortly after, a band called Johnny Hates Jazz was signed to Virgin Records and had two monster hits. Virgin told All That Jazz to change their name and ATJ told them to bugger off, which they did. In 1991 All That Jazz released a full length album called Colourblind in Scandinavia and Finland. Patrik and Marie had left before this and things were getting out of hand. tours for that album were cancelled and All That Jazz never played again as a band.
You’re intrigued now, aren’t you?
Fortunately for all of us, Raynfall Creations was kind enough to send me both of the band’s albums, and since I’m pretty sure this is some of the most obscure stuff we’ve covered, I’m offering them up here in their entirety. (For a week, of course.) I don’t have any album artwork, but hey, that’s part of the whole underground charm, or something. Enjoy — and thanks for reading all these weeks!
All That Jazz
All the Way
America
Cruel Summer
Dolphins
Gazebo Song
Even the Trees
Open Rain
Run! Hide!
Sunday
The Holy Sea
Me and Lillieth
Colourblind
Ashes
Blue Afternoon
Wet
This Is Your Day
Caravan
Dark Globe
The Midnight Sun
The Angels Fall
Fear
Party
