Pianist Adair is a 30-year mainstay of the Nashville music industry who has managed to make a reputation as a jazz pianist in a city not noted for jazz activity. With one previous CD for Mike Longo’s CAP label and four for the gift-shop label Green Hill, Adair’s Cole Porter album launches the new Green Hill jazz subsidiary label. The formula follows her Green Hill plan: A collection of familiar songs played smoothly and well. In a short note in the insert, she mentions her admiration for Jimmy Jones. Her touch emulates his. She is a full-bodied harmonicist, if not a daring one, and she swings. She has a solid working relationship with bassist Roger Spencer and drummer Chris Brown in these cool, collected performances.
Nice touches-the allusions to “Giant Steps” in “You’re the Top,” the unsentimental romanticism of Adair’s unaccompanied first chorus of “Everytime We Say Goodbye,” her modulations in the introduction to “Dream Dancing.” If the listener wishes by the end of the set that the trio had occasionally taken chances, he will nonetheless have heard an hour of agreeable music.
Beegie Adair: Dream Dancing
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