Exploring the oddity that is Danish dance floor jazz the title here might be a little too keen to blow the city's own bugle.
The contents are undeniably interesting, but any dancefloor powered by this collection couldn't fail to disappoint.
Also these are not classics in the traditional sense, although they do have a sense of history.
'What's Up', for example, was recorded in 1977 by a collection of musicians, under the name 'Electric City', as a film score for a movie of the same name which no-one seems to know much about.
As a track it's a little like a spoof Barry White instrumental track, but its claim to classic status is that, apart from being very rare, it was co-written by guitarist John Gulberg - half of Laidback who, apart from anything else, made waves with their classic 1983 electro track, 'White Horse' (itself originally only issued as a b-side) and have recently re-emerged on Bolshi.
The lyrics, which are presumably not penned in the writers first language, can be a little painful: "Subway Baby's feeling fine/ Subway Baby's on the line…Across the track/ please come back/ my Subway Baby."
Some of this presents fantastic sampling opportunities. One such moment being delivered by pure percussion break of Bjame Rostvold - Perry Knudsen's 'Magonde', while Cox Orange's drum break intro to 'Week-End' has no doubt featured on multitude of sample library CDs, even if most of the rest of the song belongs to a comic sequence out of 'Sesame Street'.
Meanwhile Matao with Atilla Engin (a Turkish drummer living in Denmark in the late Seventies) produces s percussion pattern that's still resonating through house, R&B and hip hop (not to mention the UK's Asian scene) today.
In other places this is pure dirty Harlem funk. BukiYamaz's 'Get Together' struts like the early Commodores - pre their Ritchie crap ballad period. Karin Krog's 'I'll Wait For you' opens the album with space washes that later rock down into '70's jazz-funk groove.
Latin and be-bop fusionist influenced jazz is delivered by the Jens Winther Quintet's undeniably superb 'That's The Way It Is', which not only acts as a vehicle for Winther's trumpet, but also moments of excellence from what is possibly (you can't tell from the sleeve notes) Ben Besiakov on piano and Lennart Ginman on bass.
Equally uplifting is Christian Sievert's Bahia infused 'Coffee and Cognac'.
Altogether more docile is Lilleth's soft shoe shuffle 'Riskur Samba', but for the full on Danish Brazilian carnival flick forward to Corcovado's - 'Tristeza'. Admittedly it's a little baggy on the sleeve, but if Copenhagen's big enough to embrace strictly ballroom style extravagant moves (with plenty of space for maraca action) as a dance floor classic it seems churlish to object.
