Three songs from Showboat highlight the album. "Why Do I Love You" begins and ends with some isolated Grappelli pizzicato plucking and some swinging sounds in between. "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" gets an intense dramatic treatment that emphasizes the torchy narrative, but still manages to avoid the schmaltz. "Ol' Man River" begins as a pathos-filled duet between the violin and the orchestra that moves almost angrily uptempo. Grappelli's playing honors the difference between honest emotion and manipulative sentimentality.
Album producer Etorre Stratta also leads the orchestra. Fossett and Taylor are joined in the rhythm section by drummers Alf Bigden and Graham Ward and bassist Jack Sewing.
Listening to this album, it is almost as though Jerome Kern had written these songs with someone like Stephan Grappelli in mind. Though I have read that Kern objected to the jazzed up versions of his music, it is hard to believe that he could have had any real objections to what Grappelli and his collaborators have done here. Great artists have long influenced other great artists. This is an album that does Kern's music the honor of using it as a base on which to build something new and exciting. Jazz, at its best, doesn't replace, it adds. Grappelli's Kern interpretations album is jazz at its best.
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