Van Morrison: New Arrangements and Duets (Orange Vinyl) (2LP)

With appearances by Kurt Elling, Curtis Stigers, Joss Stone and Willie Nelson! This album represents only a small part of the huge amount of unreleased material that Van Morrison wants to release in the near future instead of letting it gather dust in some archive. The big band tracks were recorded in 2014. Paul Moran and Chris White individually selected the songs for which they wanted to make big band arrangements. The duets, recorded in 2018 and 2019, feature a number of leading vocalists including Kurt Elling, Curtis Stigers, Joss Stone and Willie Nelson. Willie Nelson's duets - "What's WrongWith This Picture" and "Steal My Heart Away" - showcase the guitar talents of Lukas Nelson from Promise Of The Real. Van Morrison, who is equal parts blue-eyed soul shouter and wild-eyed poet-wizard, is one of pop music's true innovators. A restless seeker whose evocative vocals and alchemical fusion of R&B, jazz, blues and Celtic folk has produced perhaps the most spiritually transcendent work in the rock'n'roll canon Van Morrison is subject only to the whims of his own muse. His recordings cover an extraordinary stylistic terrain yet maintain a consistency and purity virtually unmatched among his contemporaries, bound together by the mythic power of his singular musical vision and incendiary voice. Spiraling repetitions of wails and whispers that transcend the boundaries of language to articulate emotional truths that go far beyond the scope of literal meaning.