Back In the Day, 1997

Buster Poindexter

Buster's Spanish Rocketship

(Uni / Polygram Pop / Jazz)

At this scrawling, stricken Big City icon David Johansen lies in a hospital bed, far from the Max's Kansas City stage across which he once gamboled. (Of course, he subsequently discarded technicolor flamboyant frippery, and replaced it with GQ lounge-singer attire and a towerblock pompadour.)

The mind boggles as to why this sterling issuance never reaped rightful regard. Buster's Spanish Rocketship ranks as the most august of David's Poindexter discs (though each proffers especial merits).

Through one's ears pass multifarious Latin pulsations that make elated homes in the feet. Tempos frolic and horns swell quite beyond hindrance. Everywhere is movement, bright colors.

And delightful though those be, they are made still more entrancing by David/Buster's voice; always of distinct salubrity, it had by that moment risen to more technically sublime stature. (A now-aged item once noted David had been espied at a NYC Frank Sinatra performance; the student clearly prospered.)

In these often celebratory tracks reverbates an earthy rapture. The executive production resounds in sensuous grandeur. Such effervescent airs as these fill the confetti-strewn avenuess of New Orleans and Rio with unashamed revelers.

Recommended: "Ondine," "Nueva Broadway (They Don't Smoke)," "Inez (Is Just a Big Rage Queen)," "My First Sin," "Iris Chacon," "Mean-Spirited Sal," "

Video: "Ondine"

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