Ken Nordine

The idea of taking Word Jazz weirdo Ken Nordine and having him perform a number of romantic jazz standards in a beatnik-esque spoken word style sounds like it would either be awfully fantastic or fantastically awful. Perhaps the worst thing that can be said about the end result is that it's neither. Let's be frank: Nordine is not a great fit for material of this sort, because his speaking style comes with that built-in smirk that makes many of the cuts here sound insincere or, even worse, like he's trying to sell you something. Now, forget about all that, because there's still an ironic appeal hearing Nordine chit-chat his way through classics like "All the Things You Are," "My Funny Valentine" and "There Will Never Be Another You." He even manages to throw in a couple twists, like lighting up a cigarette on cue, throwing off the shackles of the score when synchronizing the lyrics to the music would ruin a good Nordine phrasing, and giving some of the tracks a more dramatic reading than even the original writers may have expected. Even though he's not really able to pull this off in its entirety, this is the sort of thing that would make you smile if someone dropped one of the tracks onto a mixtape or into an eclectic radio set. Because of that, it's definitely worth the occasional (short) visit. ~ Sean Carruthers, All Music Guide