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WARREN -- Louis Prima Jr. will play some of his father's music when he performs next week, but his band, the Witnesses, isn't a tribute act.
"I didn't want to just do the Louis Prima catalog," Prima said during a phone interview from his tour bus as the band was en route to a gig in Louisiana. "I wanted to expand on it, grow it, do what he would do if he were alive."
Prima, who died in 1978 at age 67, reinvented himself throughout his career, playing New Orleans jazz, swing, big band music, jump blues and other styles in his career, and his influence extends beyond jazz players.
Van Halen's David Lee Roth had a hit with "Just a Gigolo" / "I Ain't Got Nobody," a fusion of two standards first performed by Prima in the 1950s. Stray Cats' frontman Brian Setzer drew inspiration from Prima for his own jump blues orchestra, and Los Lobos covered "I Wan'na Be Like You," which Prima performed in the animated film "The Jungle Book."
"If he still was alive, he would have touched on rap," his son said. "He changed with the times, stayed progressive."
Prima, who was 12 years old when his father died, didn't immediately follow in his musical footsteps. He played in a rock band in the '80s called Problem Child, which he compared to AC/DC and Jane's Addiction.
"It was a pretty eclectic mix of music," he said.
When he decided to embrace the spirit of his father's music, it took awhile to find like-minded players
"They were amazing musicians, but they would look at the chart, read the chart and that's all they would do," Prima said. "That's not what I wanted in a band."
Eschewing the verse, chorus, solo format, he wanted a band where all of players could shine on every song, oftentimes simultaneously.
"Everybody gets to be the center of attention. One of the greatest things about the band, the people coming to see us don't know where to look when we're performing."
The band's first album, 2012's "Return of the Wildest!," features its versions of Prima standards like "Night Train," "A Sunday Kind of Love" and "Jump, Jive an' Wail." "Blow," released in 2014, predominantly features original songs that embrace the influence of his father. Both will be part of the band's performance Tuesday at Packard Music Hall as the final concert in the Warren Civic Music Association's 2018-19 season. The band also may include some unexpected covers.
More original music should be coming from the band in the next year.
"I'm looking forward to getting in the studio later this year," Prima said. "I have a bunch of songs I can't wait to get down with the entire band involved. One of the things we got into music for was to create and share what's inside of us with the world."