Maurice Hope – March 27, 2016 at 02:27PM
Tags:_AMERICANA
Here we have an album of pop / jazz standards written by Ira and George Gershwin (plus occasional guest) performed by Texan Willie Nelson, which is not something new, far from it because one of Willie’s biggest albums was Stardust (1978), and it likewise didn’t have a country song or writer (Gershwin was on there too) in sight. Willie and his band of Bobbie Nelson, Mickey Raphael, Dean Parks, Matt Rollins, Paul Franklin, Jay Bellerose, David Fitch and Kevin Smith provide the sombre melancholy hues for Nelson to ease through the selection in typical fashion and then some. I say and then some since Cyndi Lauper and Sheryl Crow duet with the great master on a couple of songs, the former’s contribution is a terrific piece as they swop lyrics on “Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off”. Crow’s on “Embraceable You” funny enough doesn’t match up, despite Crow having a longtime love affair with country music and the likes of Nelson.
More urgent, at least during the opening bars we have “I Got Rhythm” rattle along the tracks (harmonica, piano to the fore), and with a tasty swing to it “They All Laughed” speaks of how they all laughed when Christopher Columbus spoke of the world being round. Edison too is poked fun at (and the man who’s part Willie takes) but with neat pedal steel in the mix Nelson has the last laugh. A neat, entertaining little song if ever there was one.
The title-track “Summertime” enjoys a beautiful production, and with piano, harmonica very much at the centre of things Nelson is guided, superbly across the finishing line. So well received has the album been in the jazz world it has already topped its charts, to one again underline the unique appeal of Nelson who never ceases to amaze the world. Though far from my favourite album by Willie there are plenty of people who will pick it up and never want to put it down (except of course to play the disc).
Maurice Hope
—
Feed: http://ift.tt/1J7TdNm
Inoreader Page: http://ift.tt/1Mu3AOi
Blog post: http://ift.tt/1SfbuYh