Spinning Vinyl

This is the special Saturday night after-dinner nightcap version of Spinning Vinyl. After an outstanding Italian dinner, we returned home for a nightcap and a card game and some music, all featuring pianists. 

First up was side two of Diana Krall's From This Moment On 2006. There isn't anything earth-shattering about this particular Diana Krall Record, but it is a solid outing of standards featuring the Clayton/Hamilton Jazz Orchestra and Krall's lovely voice and fine piano. It is a swell selection of songs performed flawlessly and arranged beautifully. Day In Day Out, Come Dance With Me, and Little Girl Blue stood out, but the whole side is just about perfect.

Next was Allen Toussaint's swan song American Tunes 2106, side one, featuring Toussaint's Delores' Boyfriend, Fats Waller's Viper's Drag, Professor Longhair's Mardi Gras In New Orleans, and Billy Strayhorn's Lotus Blossom, and everything works.The record is a mix of Toussaint solo piano recordings from 2013 and what would have been a new studio record that was unfinished before he died in 2015. The 2015 recordings are done with a stellar cast including Bill Frisell, Jay Belerose, Greg Leisz, Charles Lloyd, David Piltch, Adam Levy, and Van Dyke Parks. It is a wonderful Toussaint record, almost as good as his high water mark The Bright Mississippi 2009.

My wife and I are both huge fans of Ahmad Jamal. We both saw him live many moons ago and then had a chance to see him together in Seattle in 2006. I love his work from the fifties and sixties as much as any jazz pianist, and he continued to make great music in his rhythmically inventive style until 2019, just four years before his death at age 93. Saturday Morning 2013 is merely another of his great late career masterpieces. We listened to side one, with the title track and Back To The Future (both by Jamal) as well as I'll Always Be With You, the 1945 Perry Como hit.

Lastly we heard Ellis Marsalis' For All We Know 2020, side two. This recording is just outstanding, and Marsalis plays with his son Jason on vibes, who gets to shine frequently. The record, on the audiophile vinyl-only Newvelle records, has amazing sound, with both piano and vibraphone beautifully captured. Marsalis is a wonderfully fluid player, song selection is lovely, and we get to hear Marsalis' relaxed style one more time just months before his passing.

The one thing all these records have in common (other than piano) is great sound. Tommy LiPuma always made Krall's records sound great, as did Joe Henry on Toussaint's last three albums. Saturday Morning was recorded in France by some talented engineers using state of the art equipment, and everything on Newvelle Records is lovingly produced with attention to sonic detail. That doesn't matter if the music isn't up to the same high bar, but all of these performances are truly special.