swung, a la Francis A. w/ Basie arr. by Jones @ the Sands
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You know when you’ve listened to our live CD, A Song for All Seasons, and you get to the end of “Heaven on Their Minds/This Jesus Must Die,” and you hear suitcase-player Edward Burch shout out: “You guys want a song about gentrification?” And then you shout out: “Yes! Please” — well, this is that song.

The Neapolitan is an actual half-a-$mill condo development on Wells Street in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood (the address is right there in the artwork for the lead sheet below). When we were writing this song in the year 2000, it was being built, and built just as much of the neighboring Cabrini-Green public housing was being dismantled. Though I don’t believe they use it anymore, their tagline at the time was “Escape the vanilla life!”

Here’s our studio recording of “The Neapolitan.”

And then I’ll throw in an ice cream cone for free.