Beegie Adair: Monica Ramey and the Beegie Adair Trio

The true beauty of any Beegie Adair recording is that it will be straight down the middle mainstream jazz. It is money in the bank. Adair's 50-year career has found her leading her jazz trio, writing advertising jingles and accompanying vocalists, as she does on the present Monica Ramey and the Beegie Adair Trio. Ramey, a native of the midwest, take a predictably conservative approach to the Great American Songbook. Her doing so does us the favor of reminding us of jazz's most sturdy and enduring legacies, the assimilation and transformation of Tin Pan Alley and Show Tunes into the fabric of the American music vernacular.

Ramey and Adair together create a certain low-key synergy, something like the momentum achieved when a large object starts to move. That large object is the repertoire and the singer and pianist have launched it against a zero coefficient of friction making the music seem to float regardless of its historic baggage. The tempi are breezy to brisk and the arrangements are dependable. The additions of trumpeter George Tidwell and saxophonist Denis Solee are well placed in the overall scheme of the recording. This is a very able recording to remind us of the simple pleasure of cocktail hour jazz: not too demanding and superbly played.