As a young metal fan back in the day I spent many a happy hour playing air guitar to the likes of AC/DC and Iron Maiden up in my bedroom. No mean feat either - some of those solos are tricky to pull off and you've got to drum your fingers on your thigh really quickly to keep up. No guitars here, but that didn't stop Winifred Atwell from attacking her own instrument like Steve Vai on crack and any fan of hers would need crazy flipper fingers to play air piano to one of her tunes too.* 'Let's Have Another Party' is a good enough example of the exuberant brand of ivory bashing ware she peddled, and in this case it's a megamix of old standards put through a honky tonk/ragtime blender so that what came out sounds far harder to date than virtually anything in the charts around it. 'Let's Have Another Party' is essentially Jive Bunny with added swing some thirty five years early, though this fusion of tunes is executed with a fine scalpel rather than a lazy axe. It might not necessarily be the soundtrack to the type of party I'd personally enjoy going to, but Atwell sounds like she's playing for herself anyway and having one hell of a time in the process so what the hell; the most enjoyable number one in quite some time and the first black artist to top the UK charts.
* Which I confess I used to do everytime I put down my air guitar long enough to watch Pot Black on the television - Atwell's version of 'Black and White Rag' provided the theme tune.
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