The legendary pianist, arranger and producer Allen Toussaint passed away in November 2015, aged 77. This posthumous album contains music redolent of his refined New Orleans air, everything from Fats Waller to Professor Longhair, Duke Ellington, Earl Hines and Earl King, but Paul Simon too, with Toussaint himself singing his classic American Tune.
In there too is the elegant Danza Op 33 by Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869), an elegant, charming piece from the renowned composer who was born in New Orleans of Haitian extraction. (For the curious,Irish pianist Philip Martin has recorded most of Gottschalk ‘s extant piano music for Hyperion Records.)
Toussaint has a loft reputation in the story of popular music, having worked with Elvis Costello, Dr John, Paul McCartney, Lee Dorsey and the Pointer Sisters to name but a few. This writer first came across him as the man responsible for some fruity, punchy horn arrangements on The Band’s Cahoots album.
On reflection, that album is perhaps a rough measure of the sheer breadth of what he could do because nothing here sounds remotely like anything on Cahoots. Instead, Toussaint’s unshowy posthumous piano album is an essential delving into his Louisiana heritage. Stride piano, Gospel, blues and ragtime weave their way through with sly simplicity (don't you believe it) and apparent ease that distracts you from the store of learning and experience that Toussaint and his cohorts brought to the project.
Among Toussaint's accomplices are guitarist Bill Frisell, saxophonist Charles Lloyd, pianist Van Dyke Parks and singer Rhiannon Giddens who does good justice to versions of Ellington’s Rocks in My Bed and Come Sunday. Recommended, mainly because of a kind of purist honesty about American Tunes, with no pyrotechnics allowed to spoil Joe Henry’s sensitive production.
Paddy Kehoe
