Ben Webster - Ballads (2017) DSD128

The identification of Ben Webster with slow ballads is so natural that it’s surprising there have not been more albums like the present one. It seems the only previous ballad collections are Ben’s three albums with strings, which obviously constitute a special genre of “mood music”. The first of in fact was titled, with the naivety of the very early LP-era, Music for Loving.
This album on the other hand, represents much better the performances which were an essential part of Ben’s live repertoire. Selected from the typical saxophone-and-rhythm format of his European period (1964-73), it deliberately places together a series of similar tempos and similar standard songs, each played during a longer set of big-band music or of Ben’s ow group. Unlike the with-strings recordings, it throws a clear spotlight on this remarkable aspect of the saxophonist’s work.