Duke Elegant

There are few musicians whose sense of place is as firmly etched in their music as Dr John. New Orleans; the Crescent City oozes from every pore of his being, and every crotchet and quaver of his music. Often, the results are low down, dirty and downright carnal. This time round they're certified PG though: fit for consumption by anyone with the good sense and taste to want to listen.

Duke Elegant is, of course, a pet reference to one of Dr John's heroes, Duke Ellington. A tribute to the Duke on the occasion of the centennial of his birth, it's an homage, not a sap to the Duke's formidable tableau. Breathing funk where once there were exquisite arrangements, infusing orchestral manoeuvres with his own trademark cool-cat piano antics, Dr John has done all of us Ellington naifs a mighty service.

Listening to 'Solitude', with its languid, loping pace and its louche basslines, or the lounge lizard vocals of 'On The Wrong Side Of The Tracks', you'd be tempted to believe they had emerged from the belly of the good doctor himself. Canal St. and Bourbon sit easily on the decks, the odour of Spanish moss oozes from their core. The band plays with that customary Dr John watertightness, never missing a beat, never losing a microfibre between piano and percussion.

But Dr John's kept his penchant for, yes, gris gris under wraps for the duration of Duke Elegant. With the result that it's precisely that: elegant, poised, eminently tasteful. Music fit for the front parlours of Canal St. rather than the absinthe houses of Chartres St.

So for the diehard Mac Rebennack fans, Duke Elegant might not quite sate the appetite. For the Ellington fans, it's likely to re-awaken a passion for those peerless tunes, and for the Dr John neophyte, it's an adequate intro to the real delights of the man's music.

Dip a toe in here and then plunge in the deep end with the rest of his back catalogue.