Paris:- Friday, 14. February 1997:- You may not believe Be-Bop and Hipsters were before my time, and Swing was even longer ago than that, but it is true. Also, I am not 514 years old as I sometimes let on; the way I write about things around Paris.

As long ago as I go, when I didn't listen to the radio, it was playing Rosemary Clooney and Pat Boone, 'Tennessee' Ernie Ford, and the Les Paul who played the electric Hawaiian guitar, with Mary Ford singing from the bottom of the world's deepest echo chamber - that sounded so odd then and must have seemed like it was from Mars if you were Hawaiian.

I started listening to the radio when it starting playing 'Rock Around the Clock.'

After five or six years it degenerated into 'top 20 radio,' safe for consumption by crew-cut conservatives, and I 'discovered' this other music called jazz.

Jazz was on the radio less often than real rock-n-roll and to hear it you had to go to 'coffee houses.' Most people in these places were only acting 'cool,' and without role models; but there was more company in them than at home by the radio, and once in every six months you might meet somebody who was really 'cool' but you couldn't count on it.

But. After a considerable stretch of drinking high-priced coffee in small amounts, I met somebody 'cool' and they had all sorts of 'hip' friends who hung out in downstairs joints that didn't open before 23:00. It was great to have someplace to go even 'cooler' than the coffee houses after they closed.

The cellars had the musicians - when they came; because they came after working at places where they got paid. These were the town's young 'hipsters.' If there was a 'name' playing in town, sometimes sidemen would show up, and sometimes they would 'jam' with the locals. It was pretty rare; it was worth waiting for.

Together, these were be-boppers, although it was uncool to use the term. This was ten or twelve years after the 'zoot-suiters' had been cleaned out; so 'be-bop' as a word had never even arrived, unless you read it in 'On the Road,' but since nobody used the term, you didn't either.

Somewhere on the other side of the continent or an ocean or both, Mike Zwerin was a hipster. Move up to the past recent and he is still a hipster. It is not like a career - that would be uncool - but, few though they may be, there are lifelong hipsters and Mike Zwerin is one of them and he lives in Paris.

Although his name is usually seen bylined in the International Herald Tribune, Mr. Zwerin has played trombone with Mr. Miles Davis, put out five of his own albums including 'Jazz Versions of the Berlin Theatre,' with John Lewis, Thad Jones and Eric Dolphy, and now brings us 'Zip - Getting X-perimental Over U.'

If jazz has an age, it is now getting to the elder statesman era - after having been adolescent, teen-aged, a lunatic twenties, a corporate thirties, a second-coming forties and a reflective fifties. This last era has gone on a long time and now a new generation has come along that isn't quite so reflective, but recognizes the absolute value of the tunes from the past.

If kids can spend all night pogoing in sardine cans, Mike Zwerin thinks they should be allowed to do it with swing. Yeah man, swing! De-composed, re-arranged, over-exposed and under-produced; pepped up with electronics, sampling and software, just like the rest of the junk stuff you hear these days.

The difference with Zwerin's Zipster approach is that he starts out being a musician and is accompanied on this very own railroad of his, by other musicians, as if they have one front seat and three steering wheels, real instruments, a sampler and a broken 33 rpm record player.

'It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing,' the first lyric, sums up the album's purpose. This is from 'One O'Clock Jump,' composed by Count Basie in 1937, and there is no mistaking it. But without pause or warning, 'Jump' turns into 'What the Funk,' written by Mr. Zwerin last year and on this CD, is spoken by Ted Joans: 'Funk is good dirt' - the Ted Joans Heinz told me about in Munich in '64.

Then Lester Young's 1940 'Tickle Toe' becomes 'Doze Tickle Toze' to the 1993 lyrics of co-conspirator Paul Breslin, who includes,'Baby shows up in those nasty clothes, but she can't hide those tickletoes.' And, 'She likes, she likes, she likes dancin' - because that's what it's all about; dancin.'

'In the Groove' is a Paul Breslin hymn to vinyl, 'Take that diamond needle... You stick it in the groove.' The title piece jumps off from 'I'm Getting Sentimental Over You,' written in 1932 and slips into 'Gettin' X-perimental Over U.' Did I write 'slips?' This is 1997 when nothing is subtle and machines run the drums.

There are six more of these split-images with Charlie Barnet's 1944 'Skyliner' coupling with the 1995 'Let's Get It On,' with both lyrics and vocals by Paul Breslin and Marten Ingle, who 'take it all the way to Californ-I-a.' Breslin's 1987 'Closin' Time' is a hip reminder of 'One for the Road,' about halfway to the part of town Tom Waits used to hang in.

The 'Zipography' in the liner notes says this stuff is supposed to be 'Acid-Swing,' but it is not 'acid.' It's more like you take the live big-band power - recorded with what was available - you keep the music, the tune, the melody, and you add the modern substitution, which is a small group that can play, that can write new lyrics, and has access to an awful lot of 220 volts or watts, or whatever it is that comes out of these Electricité de France holes in the wall.

The band, Zip, is Mike Zwerin on trombone and bass trumpet; Paul Breslin on guitar and vocals; Marten Ingle on bass and vocals; and Erwan le Marc'hadtour on keyboards, drums and Pro Tools III System, plus code. The Zipsters have been playing around Paris' clubs since the early '80's.

This recording is meant to be played loud, in residential areas where there are dance floors. If you think you need a 'user manual' to figure out 'Doze Tickle Toze' this album is not for you.

This is also a bit of fun; if you know the originals, you'll get the joke. The last piece is only 70 seconds long and luckily the liner notes say it is called, 'Little Willie Leaps.' This 1947 composition by Miles Davis starts off and Miles says, "I'll play it and tell you what it is later." Yeah, Zipster!

Zip - 'Gettin' X-perimental Over U.' Verve 529 466-2.

Liner notes photography by Denis Majorel©1996 - Digitally re-sampled by the writer of this review.