Duke Robillard & Herb Ellis - Conversations In Swing Guitar (1999) & More Conversations In Swing Guitar (2003)

► The album is available at the usual place...

Cool, elegant and gently swinging

Very jazzy, a little less bluesy, extremely cool, gently but surely swinging, the guitar adventures of Herb Ellis and Duke Robillard were recorded during the same session at the Lakewest Studio in West Greenwich, Rhode Island, in the early months of 1999 and released on two different albums : “Conversations…” in 1999, and “More Conversations…” in 2003. But both albums would deserve to be re-released as a double CD pack.

When jazz (Ellis) meets his old cousin blues (Robillard), and when the two heroes of the meeting are both superb guitarists, the result of the encounter is necessarily appealing.

The Catch-back, vol. 3 : Herb Ellis - Pat Boyack - Buckwheat Zydeco - Doug MacLeod - Eddie Kirkland - Johnny Cash - Toby Walker - Lost Bayou Ramblers - Mercy - Robert Cage - Shawn Pittman & Jay Moeller

...some that deserved to be featured here…

Herb Ellis - Texas Swings (1992)

► Get the album at the usual place...

When Herb Ellis celebrates his native Texas

At times, when the violin and the guitar are talking together, it almost sounds like the unforgettable pair Django Reinhardt-Stéphane Grappelli. The two French gypsy jazz musicians actually used to play some of the standards featured here : "Undecided", "It Had To Be You", "Sweet Georgia Brown". But no, here it's Dallas native Herb Ellis with a group of fine Western swing-Country music instrumentists : pianist Floyd Domino, pedal steel guitar master Herb Remington, fiddlers Johnny Gimble and Bobby Bruce, and… Willie Nelson on guitar, not forgetting the two Tommys' rhythm section, Aslup on bass and Perkins on drums.

This 10-song all-instrumental album features mainly Western swing and jazz standards, with only two Ellis compositions. If the final "America the Beautiful" is a disputable choice in my view, the nine preceding tracks are cheerfully swinging without being wild. The exciting sound of Remington's pedal steel is sometimes reminding that of Buddy Emmons on Danny Gatton's two "Redneck Jazz Explosion" 1978 live albums, and the fiddles bring a vintage Country & Western sound on some tracks.