Louis Prima, C or D?

His early stuff is centred on his trumpet playing, and that is often wonderful, and has hints of his playfulness, but it was in the second half of the fifties that he hit his peak. He felt that rock 'n' roll was taking away a lot of his audience, so he pumped up the energy levels and increased the speed. His late '50s stuff with wife Keely Smith (they split soon after when he walked in on her "performing a sex act on" an agent or promoter; she was soon replaced by the harsh-sounding Gia Maione) and backing group Sam Butera and the Savages is some of the most exuberant and fun music ever made. It's mostly standards, jazz and pop and whatever, played with extraordinary verve and with Keely's smooth and classy tones supporting Louis's wonderful, gruff, playful tones, complete with wisecracking and scat and anything else he felt like throwing in.

If you want a good comp, try Zooma Zooma or Buona Sera - you can usually find them reasonably cheaply. I also recommend The Wildest and The Call Of The Wildest - the latter has my favourite album cover ever, which I might try to look out for you. You need a sense of irony to love it. Oh, 'Call' is also available on a twofer with The Wildest Show At Tahoe, which is good too.

He has a posthumous key role in one film: he was the star guest who never showed up in Stanley Tucci's excellent The Big Night (if I've remembered the title correctly). He's prominent on the soundtrack of Casino a couple of times too. And UK readers might have heard him on a Gap ad a year or two back, singing Jump, Jive An' Wail.

He's one of my half dozen favourite singers ever, and my favourite jazz person, so I obviously say he is very classic indeed, but what do you think?