Search - Davell Crawford :: Love Like Yours and Mine

Those who cherish Davell Crawford holding the torch for the New Orleans piano tradition of Huey "Piano" Smith and Professor Longhair will be jolted by this ultraromantic collection of balladic standards. Crawford's hushed jazz attack is somewhat akin to vocalists Cassandra Wilson and Andy Bey, but even more in debt to the precise intonation and slightly sassy sophistication of Sarah Vaughan, who is name-checked on the title track, one of three Crawford originals. Of the remakes, there's a sublime extended workout of Charlie Smalls's "Home," a shrewdly rendered emphasis on the gospel underpinnings of the Beatles' "Let It Be," and a "Fly Me to the Moon" burnished with Vaughan-inflected elegance. And while die-hard Crescent City purists won't appreciate it, Crawford's clipped, sprightly, New Orleans-style piano is enough in evidence to keep the material from becoming overly sentimental. --Britt Robson