Here’s an album to get you over your depression over the passing of Mark Murphy. The iconic vocalist is captured here at the Gazarte Club in Athens, Greece, back in 2008. He was on the throes of two highly acclaimed ballad albums, and sounds in great form here. He’s teamed with locals Alex Drakos/dr, George Georgiadis/b, Spiros Exaras/g as well as Thomas Rueckert/p and the team works well on a collection of standard Murphy fare.
Murphy is in vintage flexible form, giving reference to Socrates on “My Funny Valentine” and vulnerable on “When I Fall IN Love/My One and Only Love.” Exaras does some exciting guitar work during “Red Clay” as Murphy’s voice leaps tall buildings at a single jump. A few times Rueckert and Exaras collide like an Athenian traffic jam, as on a cluttered “All Blues,” but they bear down well n the snappy “Milestones.” Murphy’s solo intro to “On Green Dolphin Street” is an elastic tour de force, and Geordiadis lays down a hip line for Murphy as he grooves down on “Summertime.”
As prophetic as the oracle at Delphi.