Preservation Hall Jazz Band & The Del McCoury Band - American Legacies (2011)

The title of American Legacies is plural because it represents both the legacies of jazz and bluegrass in the identities of its principals, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the Del McCoury Band. That makes for a felicitous pairing of traditional Southern styles that leans toward one and then the other, but is at its best when the musicians blend together. The Dixieland horns of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band are in ascendance, for example, in the second-line sound of Hank Williams' "Jambalaya" and "Milenberg Joys," while "You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry" is more of a McCoury Band track with the jazz band just piping in here and there in the background. McCoury turns the closer, "One More ‘Fore I Die," into a round of solos, alternating between his own men and the Preservation musicians, and that is when this jazz/country hybrid really works. -- William Ruhlmann