Aaron Weinstein & John Pizzarelli: Blue Too

Aaron Weinstein-Violin
John Pizzarelli-Guitar, Vocal track 7

When my day job —reporting on genocide in Darfur and the constant struggle to keep the Bill of Rights alive here—bring me down, I have to put some music on. From now on, one of the first CDs I'll reach for is this conversation—and that's what jazz is —between Aaron Weinstein and John Pizzarelli. As this session invigoratingly demonstrates, while a standard rhythm section can be incandescent (with Jo Jones, say, on drums), a true jazz improviser can be his or her own rhythm section. And when there are two players for whom swinging is a s natural as breathing, you get the music you have in your hand.

—Nat Hentoff, the dean of jazz critics, currently writes about jazz for Jazz Times, The Village Voice, and the Wall Street Journal, as well as being the author of numerous books on jazz, most recently American Music Is, DeCapo, 2004

Selections:
I Want To Be Happy, Cocktails For Two, Little White Lies, Raggin' The Scale, Blue Too, You, Don't Be That Way, Diga Diga Doo, I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan, You Do Something To Me, Melancholy Lullaby, The Blue Room, I Wrote It For Jo, As Long As I'm Singing