Allan Vaché "It Might As Well Be Swing"

Perhaps you've never given it too much thought, but records like this are becoming a rarity. Think about it: A swinging little jazz quartet, with Allan Vaché's clarinet in a leadership role; and piano, bass and drums helping out on ten etched-in-stone classics, every one of which you know. The synthesizer got locked up; the electronics were unplugged and the singer had laryngitis. So happily we're left with Allan Vaché and three new names in the Arbors Records family---Mark McKee, piano; Charlie Silva, bass; and Walt Hubbard, drums. All work hand in glove with Vaché on these much loved classics. Vaché, it should be noted, doesn't subscribe to the DeFranco/Giuffre bebop school of clarinet players. He's from the swing school, the lineage of Goodman and Shaw. And his tune selections reflect that glorious era of quality songwriting with choices like "Poor Butterfly", "Air Mail Special", "Cheek To Cheek", "You Took Advantage Of Me", "Out Of Nowhere" and lots more. So, in this era of 20,000 sheep storming huge arenas to willingly get their hearing loss underway, there are still a few records like this one. It gives me a ray of hope. And it brightened my day.

Arbors; 2018; appx. 54 min.