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Album reviews Music

WILLIE NELSON/WYNTON MARSALIS

Rating: NN


As country music’s king of the high-concept recording, Willie Nelson needs to drop a head-scratcher of a project now and again to keep the Nashville brass guessing and maintain his position on top. Now that the reggae session and children’s albums have been crossed off the list, a live recording date at Lincoln Center with Wynton Marsalis seems like an appropriately unconventional next step.

The results of their joint venture don’t sound any closer to any sort of jazz than to country, but as the title suggests, they’ve found common ground in the blues – Nelson lived with them and Marsalis heard about them in Louis Armstrong records, and that will suffice for a one-off stage duel. Don’t count on hearing any lively back-and-forth exchanges, though, they’re clearly too respectful of each other to risk stepping on any toes in public.

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