Boz Scaggs rarely does a less than wonderful album. His latest is an exemplary collection of smooth and soulful standards and a few other choice items including a song he wrote for his first album Boz Scaggs (1969) “I’ll Be Long Gone” and an Allen Toussaint song that was a hit for Southern Soul diva Irma Thomas, “It’s Still Raining”.
The first re-invented with brio and barely echoing the original, and the second – one of the highpoints of the album – in essence true to the New Orleans ballad, but sounding more chilled and jazzier, and there’s no harm in that. The trouble with this exceptional track – a little masterpiece - is that it puts everything that follows in the shade, on an album which at times feels a little samey.
Boz has done his share of soul, disco and old-fashioned urban blues, always marshalling a string of fantastic bands, but this will his third selection of standards, the stripped down “But Beautiful” (2003) and the more orchestrated “Speak Low” (2008). He took to singing standards just as easily as Rod Stewart or Bob Dylan revisiting Frank Sinatra classics.
His voice has matured – like the best wine (Boz ran a vineyard in Napa for a while), without losing any of its musicality and control. He weaves phrases as if they were dripping honey. He remains very sexy, and these are songs you might listen to well after midnight, with a great bourbon, a spliff, and a loved one who shares your passion for crooners with a bluesy inflection. Great jazzy sidemen, not least the tango/Piazolla bandoneon specialist, Seth Asarnow here on the piano and Jason Lewis barely present with his subtle brush work, a gentle and always perfectly placed pulse. It’s all very tasteful, and each song – all of them about love - works like a very seductive piece of well-honed jewellery. Plenty of delights here, not least a sultry version of Bobby Troup’s “The Meaning of the Blues”, or the aching melancholy of Lerner and Lane’s “Too Late Now”.
