Jazzers always like to say that Duke Ellington’s music was “Beyond Category”, but the same could be said for country music legend George Jones, who defined the music so well (like Patsy Cline) that his influence has spread to just about every other genre.
Well, Broadway voiced Staci Griesbach is working diligently and successfully at building bridges between the jazz fans and their cousins from the other side of the tracks. Her last album covered the Cline songbook, and this one, with her backed by some of LA’s finest swingers, delves into music from The Rolls Royce of Country Music. As with the best of jazz artists, the key is to have a story to tell with your own voice, and Griesbach makes it happen on both fronts.
There are dashes of the expected steel string guitar (Rich Hinman) and fiddle (Stuart Duncan), but they are used sparingly and fragrantly as on the wanderlust “The Grand Tour” and “A Good Year For The Roses”. She sensuously sambas to Bob Sheppard’s flute on a dreamy tropical take of “Walk Through This World With Me”, agonizes with Barber’s tenor on a the ballad “You’re Still On My Mind” and tells a low ceiling’d smokey blues with him on “Bartender’s Blues”.
She has a street preacher’s presence on the saying modal read of “The Race Is On”, spits out some sass to the boogaloo swamp of a honky tonkin’ hoot of “White Lightnin’” and has a twinkle in her eye on the two stepping Western Swing of “Why Baby Why”, burning up with Duncan fiddles like Nero.
On this second edition of mixing jazz and hoe down, Griesbach makes calls like Belicheck and audibles like Favre; this album will bowl you over in a super way.