**** Various Artists

JUMPIN' LIKE MAD: COOL CATS & HIP CHICKS NON-STOP DANCIN'

(Capitol, two CDs)

These 51 tracks from the '40s and '50s hark back to an impossible time and place in the pop-music galaxy: in the days before niche marketing, where swing, bebop, blues, and R&B all glowed as part of the same hipster firmament. For compiler Billy Vera, jump is any black jukebox dance music of the period. So swing jazz guys like Lester Young and Cootie Williams rub shoulders with proto-rock-and-rollers like Joe Turner and Louis Jordan, pop smoothie Nat King Cole, and jive talkers Babs Gonzales and Harry "The Hipster" Gibson. The saxophones honk, the pianos roll with a boogie-woogie stride, and the jive flies (check Nat Cole's "The Frim Fram Sauce"). Amid the broad humor and blunt sax squawks you'll find detailed horn arrangements, fancy guitar picking (including T-Bone Walker), and delightful obscurities (Calvin Boze, anyone?). The newcomer Squirrel Nut Zippers crowd will find a trove here. Culturally important, yes, but also ridiculously entertaining.

-- Jon Garelick