Josh Nelson (featuring Sara Gazarek): Leaving Here

Josh Nelson is one of the most talented of the new generation of Los Angeles pianists. But on this track he steps into the background and casts the limelight on singer Sara Gazarek and guitarist Anthony Wilson -- guest artists who do a superb job interpreting Nelson's poignant composition "Leaving Here." I have remarked elsewhere on Gazarek's skillful jazz hermeneutics, her ability to inhabit a lyric, which she demonstrates again on this track. The words to this song are mostly a string of threadbare poetic images, but Gazarek makes them into something special. And Wilson once again shows why singers from Diana Krall to Al Jarreau seek him out as an accompanist. I am not sure the string quartet adds much to the proceedings, but they merely tiptoe around the borders of the performance without distracting from the magic of the masters at work.