Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Ray Parker, Swingin' Never Hurt Nobody

Switching styles is an integral part of my listening habits. Like my life, my blogs reflect the wide range of music I tend to pay attention to. Today is no exception, in that we are switching over to a slightly different style of music.

It's acoustic bassist Ray Parker with a drummer-less trio of Russell George on the violin and Jon Hart at the guitar, putting together a set of infectiously joyful swing tunes for Swingin' Never Hurt Nobody (self-released).

All three have very good facility and put it to fine use on this album of mostly standards. Swing is the thing from Django to Stuff Smith and beyond. These are players who quite clearly take delight working in the earlier style and they do so with a great deal of panache, charm, and skill.

Ray has a full-fledged, all-over approach to the bass and shows himself to good advantage as an integral part of this trio. Russell George and Jon Hart are no slouches on their instruments either, so all goes well.

A treat for the ears. Bravo!

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