Rhino Records
2007
Jools Holland: Best Of Friends
About This Album
By 2007, Jools Holland was a national institution, performing jazz and good-time big-band music when it was totally out of fashion. Best of Friends was yet another album in the Small World Big Band series and featured many of the highlight tracks from other albums in the series, including the original Small World Big Band, More Friends, Friends 3, and Moving Out to the Country. The album opened with one of Holland's favorites, "Tuxedo Junction," which he played alone -- well, with the help of his big-band R&B orchestra. A boogie-woogie piano and a big-band orchestra were not typical sounds heard on many albums from the mid-2000s. But then the collaborations came thick and fast, with guest stars who had appeared on his regular TV series, Later with Jools Holland, or his New Year's Eve specials, Jools Holland Hootenanny, which since 1992 had replaced the traditional Scottish Hogmanay celebrations as the only totally musical New Year's Eve show on mainstream TV. Reading like a who's-who of the music business, singers old and new joined Holland playing the piano and in most cases with the big band backing them, and the album featured styles across as wide a range as could be found on any album from this time.
Track List (try tracks 2,4,6,8,9,16,17,19 and 20)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
12.
13.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
20.
21.