Klement Julienne certainly have an air-travel fetish. Naming their group after a terminal PA announcement (sampled on one of Alain Dahan's vintage sound effects records), he and fellow French producer Joseph Guigui continue their quest for the ultimate in aural first-class service, naming their first full-length after the iconic Pan American airlines. Pan Am may have been the company that invented the jet-setting lifestyle by offering the very commercial, first trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific flights in history, but there is hardly anything groundbreaking about this CD. This pair strictly traffic in retro-Latin jazz and Bossa-pop, which means that the reggae-tinged "Jerko," with vocalist
Stanley Beckford, is perfect music for lounging in your tree swing, preferably at South Beach, Miami's Nikki Beach Club, but your Chicago backyard on a sunny day would be fine, too. Unlike most retro-swing acts,
Klement Julienne aren't afraid of the real stuff, opening "Pour la Vie" with a rich saxophone duet, and driving "Possoz Boogie" not with a sampled beat, but rather a slick trumpet triplet. None of which means that this pair are authentic like a pair of 1954 Pan Am pilot's wings, but at least they're vintage schooling seems to run deeper than a quick layover at JFK's Worldport terminal. ~ Joshua Glazer