Four Piece Suit

By PHIL GALLO

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Four Piece Suit (LunaPark; 300 capacity; $ 7)
 
Band: Milt Reder, David Sholl, Dean Cassell, Lorne Entress.
 

TX:Presented inhouse. Reviewed June 21, 1996. Cocktail, bachelor pad, lounge -- call it what you will -- the genre has been short on finding a generation capable of extending the legacies of Esquivel and Morton Gould. In its purest form, lounge is cold -- martinis, suits, digestible melodies and futuristic furniture -- yet the art form by which modern performance is based, rock 'n' roll, is concerned with heat. Four Piece Suit, a Boston quartet known primarily as the Savages, who back the inimitable R&B singer Barrence Whitfield, allow those outside influences to flow freely on disc ("Ready to Where?" was issued last month by Ocean Music) and with unfettered abandon in concert. It's a perfect basement combo: loud and raunchy but manicured, able to deliver multigenerational pleasure with catchy melodies from Xavier Cugat and movies of yore.

TX:Henry Mancini stands tallest to this configuration, and the two Hank pieces performed Friday --"A Shot in the Dark" and "Something for Cat" from "Breakfast at Tiffany's"-- showed how solid the old maestro was at rock composition. Guitarist Milt Reder and saxophonist David Sholl have nearly unnatural affection for Finnish folk tunes -- to them anything can be adapted to surf or vintage R&B treatment.

They create hip kitsch by roaring through Neil Young's "Hey Hey My My" and start a hip-grind with their own "In Pain in Paris" and "Strip Search." Four Piece Suit is a perfect fit for any era.