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Phil Woods Quintet

American Songbook

Kind of Blue 10005

About this set of standards, performed with a band whose core members (Phil Woods, bassist Steve Gilmore, drummer Bill Goodwin) have been together for 29 years, Woods himself says: '[I'm] coming back to the great American songbook.

I've been training for it my whole life I've never before done a recording just of songs in settings like these.' Accordingly, three Cole Porter songs, two each by George Gershwin and Harold Arlen, plus one by Jerome Kern, are addressed by what must be one of the most skilful and informally cohesive units in the music, here completed by trumpeter Brian Lynch (who's been with Woods since 1992) and pianist Bill Charlap.

Nothing is hurried, everything taken with due consideration, but the obvious respect with which such songs as 'All the Things You are', 'I've Got You Under My Skin' (tastefully latinised) and 'Every Time We Say Goodbye' (a delicious alto feature) are addressed in no way compromises the fire and energy of the performances.

Woods's piercing tone and tumbling, idea-strewn attack have always been his trademarks, and they remain so in the middle of his eighth decade; Lynch (as might be expected from an ex-Messenger) is a fiery but polished trumpeter; and the rhythm section is impeccable, making this album a model of its type, a perfect encapsulation of what the extraordinary new label Kind of Blue seems to be about: putting virtuosos in settings conducive to relaxed but utterly committed music-making.

Recommended.