But Here Now
A funked-up jazzy keyboard by James Raymond opens the first
track She’s Got to be Somewhere,
Crosby’s vocal cascading in its fine melodic line, waiting for the equally fine
harmonies to commune: this has the sound of a Steely Dan number from a while
ago, a touchstone others have noted in its obvious echo. Well, that’s fine too.
The next is the title track, and it is sublime. That’s way
beyond fine. With vocal accompaniment from Becca Stevens, the harmonies are
genuinely glorious – the extra move to a wash of more harmony and soprano sax
by Steve Tavaglione invokes Crosby from his earliest days and yet also anchores
it to this newer jazz ambience. It might well be my track of the year.
Third Sell Me a
Diamond is another classic Crosby, the musical narrative that has a message
– if this transaction is the key to letting go…makes conflict free sound good
to me – the metaphor a mysterious sparkle that refracts the search for freedom,
perhaps: desirable but not always easy to find. Greg Leisz on pedal steel and
Jeff Pevar on guitar add layers of soft and hard like the metaphor itself.
Before the sweet cover of Joni Mitchell’s Ameila, songs like Before Tomorrow Falls on Love,
a co-write with Michael McDonald, and Here
It’s Almost Sunset remind of those jazz-inflected songs from Hejira. And of
course the actual cover is beautiful, Crosby’s still superb singing and Mitchell’s
songwriting conjoined in the now of its recording and the history of their
relationship. The album as a whole is a complete representation of this
particular symbiosis, the enduring sound of then and now; there and here.
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