The final recent acquisition from scrolling through eBay after a few drinks, and If I'd been looking for a 1977 album, I wouldn't have expected it to be this, Tom Waits in his smooth barroom jazz phase. And while it's not going to be remembered as one of Waits' more groundbreaking works, there's still a lot to enjoy here.
Opening with the instrumental Cinny's Waltz, an orchestral instrumental, which is no more than pleasant, until a dirty trumpet takes us to a conclusion. Muriel is Waits the pianist, singer (with a rather nice understated sax below), and is enjoyable, then there's I Never Talk To Strangers, a duet with Bette Midler, which again, is very listenable. Jack & Neal / California, Here I Come is a more upbeat jazz number, which grows with further listening, but A Sight For Sore Eyes isn't as interesting, a bit of a Waits growler with piano. Potters Field, however, is a narrative epic, Waits semi-spoken lines conveying an air of menace and leaving a shiver down the spine, and it leads into the sublime Burma Shave, simple Tom and piano, until the trumpet lead out. This really seems to be an album peaking in the second half, where so many others fall into a lull. But the excitement isn't continued - Barber Shop rolls along pleasantly over a strong bassline, while Foreign Affairs ends the album with a gentle piano song.
It's a nice album, with only a few highlights, but plenty of decent songs, lacking, however, the bravery of later work, and much of the humour of some earlier bar-room style work like Nighthawks At The Diner.
3* - a perfectly good and listenable Tom Waits album, with only a couple of standouts.
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