Murphy's War

Roger Marcel Cicero Ciceu (6 July 1970 – 24 March 2016) was a German jazz and pop musician. He is interpreted the sound and spirit of the swing era for contemporary audiences, upholding the family traditions established by his father, renowned jazz pianist Eugene Cicero. In 2003 he founded the Roger Cicero Quartet as well as an 11-member big band, both of them adherents to traditional jazz idioms but with lyrics in their leader's native German tongue. After releasing the 2006 album Good Morning Midnight in collaboration with pianist Julia Hülsmann, Cicero issued his solo debut, Männersachen, later that same year… This "Best Of" compilation includes the studio and live tracks recorded beetween 2006-2016.

Once upon a time there was a prince and a princess – that's how the story of the Murphys should begin," said a friend of this golden pair. Handsome, gifted, wealthy Americans with homes in Paris and on the French Riviera, Gerald and Sara Murphy were at the very center of expatriate cultural and social life during the modernist ferment of the 1920s.

Fantastic Voyage follows 2011 s hugely-successful Jazz Noire collection by letting the same team return to those sleazy dives and bars, this time homing in on the dope, drink and dubious characters to provide a vivid picture of high-seeking low life between the 1930s and 1950s. The music on Drink Up Light Up! evokes that time when orchestras swelled, brass sections exploded like fireworks and blues dripped off piano keys onto booze- and tear-stained barroom floors, staggering cast including names like the Reefer Man and Snuff Dippin Mama, but the themes are just as relevant to today s recession-hit climate: the desire to escape by getting high (and the often unfavourable repercussions on relationships).