A mainstream stylist that not everyone will know is Joe Utterback, whose Night Train is actually his fifth release for Connoisseur Society. The program here is weighted towards such well-worn material as “Satin Doll,” “Embraceable You,” “Lullaby of Birdland” and the title track, and while Utterback has no problems spanning the stylistic range implied by these pieces, he definitely prefers the melody-with-interjections approach described above, and some of the interjections sound as much like superior cocktail piano as they do like jazz. Perhaps I should just say that it’s not my cup of tea and leave it at that.
Joe Utterback: Night Train
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