I was delighted when I heard that KGB was going to cut an album. I've been around Julie, Claude and David in a lot of musical ways over the past 11 years. I've played in bands with all three of them, and have danced to them in quite a combination of other bands. I've called dances to their music many times, and I've also spent a lot of time experiencing their tasty brains while traveling to and from gigs. With all of this history between us, I was eager to see just what would crawl out of their heads for this album.

With most other bands, the outcome is a bit easier to foresee. The average country & western group will record a fairly predictable set of cheating-heart-pickup-truck-railroad-prison-mother tunes, and a bluegrass group will tend towards gospel-cabin-in-the-piney-woods-lil'-darlin' themes. However, with KGB, you have a group whose musical pedigree includes classical music, jazz, swing, hip hop, rock, tango, samba, Balkan, klezmer, Irish, Playford, French Canadian, and oldtime music. All three of these guys have also written a number of really swell tunes, making it even harder to categorize them.

Their repertoire is deep and wide. They also have a nice combination of musical confidence and a wild hair that leaves them not only flexible enough to take risks with their music, but also competent enough to pull it off. This makes it hard for a caller to stump them with a request for special tunes. Just for the heck of it, the next time you are calling a dance, try this little experiment with the band. With no advance warning, ask them if they can play either a two-part or a three-part slip jig for the next dance. If that doesn't faze them, try asking them to improvise on a 24 bar blues for the dance after that. If they can hack that, pull out all the stops, and ask for Balkan tunes with 7/8 time signatures, or for surprise tune choices, like "La Habaņera" from Bizet's opera, Carmen. I've done all of these things with KGB, and they have handled all of these requests with grace and style.

Then, there's the instrumental possibilities. Among them, they play an astonishing variety of things that you pluck, bow, squeeze, blow, hit and even walk on. The album credits list instruments from of all of these categories, including one instrument that even I have never heard of.

Despite all of these potential directions for the album to take, there were a few things I was certain about it: it would be original; it would be interesting; and it would contain some great dance music. After David gave me a preview copy of the album, I quickly verified these predictions. Among the 13 cuts on this album, I found several old friends and quite a few new ones. There are several swell jigs, some hot reel sets, and a very whimsical polka. One of my favorite English country dance tunes (a slip jig!) is there, too.

Besides playing the hell out of other people's tunes, Julie, David and Claude have all written exceptionally nice tunes of their own. This album nicely showcases a number of these tunes, including ethereal waltzes by David and Julie, and a really keen samba band number by Claude that makes me want to march around the neighborhood wearing a silly hat and whacking on a frigideira.

Someone once said that dancing is music made visible. When you are at a KGB dance, it's easy to see this effect in action. As their music changes in character from tune to tune, the dancing changes with it, alternating among smooth and pulsatile, calm and passionate, whimsical and profound, and many other Terpsichorean antipodes. However, no matter how wild or imaginative their music becomes, it comes back from the edge just in time to support you when you need it, and their steady, driving beat is always there, inexorably pulling your feet across the floor.

A famous conductor was once interviewed about his views on love and music. He was asked, "Which do you prefer in love or music, Maestro? An enthusiastic amateur, or a technically perfect professional?"

He replied, "They both have their merits. However, what one really wants is passionate virtuosity!"

I think that he would have really liked KGB.