The Doggy Cats: Daikon Pizza

Daikon Pizza from pianist Tetsuro Hoshii and The Doggy Cats may never be anyone's idea of essential listening or on anyone's best-of list of desert island must-haves. It might not even sell north, south, east or west of Sunny's Bar, the band's main performance space, in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

For jazz-phobic pet lovers and the two legged people who love them, Daikon Pizza is one hell of a party that will chase away whatever blues are nagging at your heels. It will make that morning commute less a lifetime chore and more of a bopping exercise behind the wheel that will have fellow commuters wondering if you're having a fit. It is that perfect disc to play after an argument with the significant other. A Brooklyn meets Bourbon Street meets Daffy Duck via Japan and Berklee conglomeration of trumpeter Aaron Bahr, saxophonist Zac Zinger, trombonist Christopher Palmer, drummer Rob Garcia and bassist Michael Bates congealing and cajoling in, under, above and around Hoshi's kid-in-a-toy-store musical imagination.

With brisk, buoyant arrangements, musical effervescence, and a sheer sense of fun, tracks like "Happy Dog," "Bourgeoisie Breakfast with Dogs," "Howdy Cats!," "Fatty Catty," and "Old Clock" make it impossible not to smile or whisk the nearest person off his or her feet and dance. Happy happy music like this doesn't come around too often.

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