Boz Scaggs Detour 2025

Boz Scaggs has been here before, and the results are always excellent in a very mellow, laid-back jazz way. But Beautiful 2003 and Speak Low 2008 were both fine late night jazz entrees, and this one is at least the equal of those outings.

Accompanied by a jazz piano trio, Scaggs sings everything with sensitivity and nuance normally reserved for the finest jazz vocalists. If you heard the two mentioned above, you already know that he can deliver jazz vocals as fine as everything else he does in soul, blues, and rock.

Song selection is a lovely dip into the great American songbook and features some songs that not everyone has recorded, at least not recently. There are familiar tunes (The Meaning of the Blues, The Very Thought of You, Angel Eyes) and there are less familiar ones (Detour Ahead, Once I Loved, Too Late Now) that set this collection apart from and above the usual jazz standards collection and makes it sound more interesting than dragging out only the oft-covered songs. In addition to the jazz there are two lovely surprises. Allen Toussaint's It's Raining opens the record, and the rendition is stellar in a quiet way. Scaggs' own I'll Be Long Gone from 1969 is included in an interesting arrangement that is lovely. 

Two things make this record special. One is Scaggs' voice, and the phrasing he has so clearly developed for jazz. The other is pianist Seth Asarnow, whose playing and arranging are sensitive and deft. 

Since 1969 Boz Scaggs has made nineteen records, and there isn't anything close to a disappointment in the catalog. Make that twenty.