Jeff Healey
Last Call (Stony Plain Records)
Featuring his
cool-jazz lyrical stylings (and more than a bit of hotel-lounge posturing),
trumpet playing and multitrack guitars, Healey runs the gamut of jazz standards
(“Pennies from Heaven”) and whimsical obscurities (ha ha, Jeff, “You Can’t Pull
the Wool Over My Eyes”). Often completely alone, other times backed by
pianist/clarinetist Ross Wooldridge or violinist Drew Jurecka, this is the
sound of virtuosity being shelved in favor of complete derivative replication.
It’s far from his Stevie Ray Vaughan-accompanying, YouTube sensationalism and
closer to the Healey one might find at home, chillin’ amid stacks of his
expansive 78-R.P.M. collection.
In other words, if Patrick Swayze is manning the door for this session, the bar is somewhere in Count Basie-era Kansas City, or down around Basin Street, New Orleans.



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