Shepp, Archie / Waldron, Mal – Left Alone Revisited

Left Alone is the legendary theme that Mal Waldron composed for Billie Holiday, for whom he was the last pianist. With Archie Shepp, another admirer of the singer and, like him, a great lover of duets, Waldron revisits some of the tunes associated with this unique voice. Modesty and emotion are present, and while the shadow of the great Billie hovers over this session, it is not the painful and tortured image that we often associate with her, but a benevolent figure who communicates to the saxophonist and the pianist an expressive force, a sweetness and a fullness of sound that go straight to the heart, and make a place for themselves there for a long time, right next to our most intimate emotions. Remarkable.