When you hook up two such fabulous musical Brits as George Shearing and Barry Tuckwell, the whole has just got to be better than the sum of the parts. And it is! Who knew that Tuckwell could sound so gorgeous! He and Shearing seem to crawl inside each other's heads on this one, and Cole Porter is smiling, somewhere, grateful these two gentlemen picked his music. This will make you smile, over and over.
I automatically link the name Shearing with jazz, and in that respect this album is a bit short on the latter. Once you accept that, then this CD is worth the ocassional play.
The outstanding thing for me is the beautiful sound of Tuckwell's French horn. Deep, resonent, enchanting and frequently mournful. However it doesn't really gel with Shearing's modern jazz piano style. Nowhere in Tuckwell's solos do I detect anything approaching spontaneous improvisation and assume his solo pieces were actually written down.
One little bonus though is a couple of Cole Porter tunes I had never come across before.
George Shearing and Barry Tuckwell have created a stunning, hauntingly romantic version of Cole Porters music. The sound is so moody and sensual that you are drawn into an illusion of anything you might want to imagine as you listen.