Aurora Nealand - Live at Luthjen's (2020)

Among the many little musical pleasures stolen by the coronavirus pandemic is singer, clarinetist and soprano saxophonist Aurora Nealand’s weekly summit with pianist Tom McDermott at Buffa’s on Esplanade Avenue.

On most Thursday nights, Nealand and McDermott held court in Buffa’s backroom, delivering spry, sparkling takes on songs from across the pop and jazz spectrum.

The duo’s new CD, “Live at Luthjen’s,” captures the intimacy of those Buffa’s gigs even though it wasn't recorded there. Instead, Nealand and McDermott recorded in front of an audience at Marigny Studios. The studio, at the corner of Chartres and Marigny streets, previously housed the second incarnation of Luthjen’s Dance Hall, which closed in 1981.

Starting last fall, Marigny Studios hosted a monthly series of jazz shows. The $50 admission price included wine, food and a recording of the evening’s performance.

Singer John Boutte kicked off the series in September, followed by McDermott and Nealand on Oct. 11. Subsequent months featured clarinetist Tim Laughlin, trumpeter Wendell Brunious, a duo of clarinetist Evan Christopher and keyboardist David Torkanowsky, and finally, in February, the Panorama Jazz Band.

The musicians have the option of releasing their Marigny performances commercially. Both the Christopher/Torkanowsky and McDermott/Nealand duos have issued albums titled “Live at Luthjen’s.”

McDermott and Nealand have collaborated off and on for a decade. Their previous album, 2015’s “City of Timbres,” was, in McDermott’s estimation, “much more experimental.”

“Live at Luthjen’s” more closely approximates the duo’s sets at Buffa’s, where the varied set list skips around eras and genres with ease.

McDermott has dedicated decades and more than a dozen albums to the study and practice of New Orleans piano and the various strands woven into it, from ragtime to Brazilian choro.

The versatile Nealand, whose projects include the traditional jazz Royal Roses and the rockabilly ensemble Rory Danger & the Danger Dangers, is equally fluent on soprano saxophone and clarinet.

She’s also a nuanced vocalist with a knack for illuminating a lyric’s emotional core. On “Live at Luthjen’s,” she caresses Duke Ellington’s “In My Solitude” before McDermott embarks on an elegant solo. They have fun with Carole King’s “Will You Love Me Tomorrow.”

They swing back to the 1920s for “Ain’t No Sweet Man,” then reach back even further for Chopin’s “Mazurka No. 49, Op. 68 No. 2.” When McDermott first played “Mazurka” as a solo piano piece, he realized it contained “klezmer-ish” elements; Nealand’s soprano sax highlights those elements.

On “City of Timbres,” they recorded Tom Waits’ “Picture in a Frame,” from Waits' “Mule Variations” album. They returned to “Mule Variations” for “Take It With Me” on “Live at Luthjen’s.” It is a revelation.

“When you have a dulcet voice like Aurora’s sing a Tom Waits tune, it’s utterly transformative,” McDermott said. “You realize the guy can really write melodies. It’s not all in the timbre and lyrics and his unique sound environments.”

Nealand and McDermott also deliver a lovely reinvention of Hank Williams’ classic country lament “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.”

“It’s a very modal take on it, not the way you’d hear a country singer do it at all,” said McDermott, who previously performed the song with another frequent collaborator, singer Meschiya Lake. “If you’re going to do a song that’s so well-known, try and do something different with it.”

McDermott is a big fan of ragtime composer Scott Joplin. He and Nealand, on soprano sax, take liberties with Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag.”

“She wanted to loosen it up and not play it dead straight,” McDermott said. “So we play it in a very jazzy way. It’s not like it’s written.”

They conclude with “The City of New Orleans,” Steve Goodman’s tale of a train. As he does on “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” McDermott deploys what he calls his “simplified (James) Booker bass,” playing eight beats per bar with his left hand on the piano keys.

McDermott and Nealand based their “City of New Orleans” on Arlo Guthrie’s popular version. “Arlo improved it as a piece of music,” McDermott said. “There’s a very different set of changes in the last four measures of the song. The spirit and lyrics are great all the way through, but I prefer Arlo’s version.”

In her introduction to “City of New Orleans," Nealand notes, “This is such a close-to-our-hearts song.”

On "Live at Luthjen's," she and McDermott make every song sound like it is.

Aurora Nealand - vocals, clarinet, soprano sax
Tom McDermott - piano