Review: Index Finger And Friends – Old School Sessions
Index Finger And Friends – Old School Sessions
Format: CD / Label: Independent
Release: 2024
Text: Tom Wouters
‘Old School Sessions’ is an album by the Munich-based German blues, jazz and improvisation duo Index Finger, consisting of Alegria Mannhardt (vocals & accordion) and Uli Lehmann (double bass). The duo, of which Uli Lehmann is known as bassist of the German band The Stimulators, recorded fifteen pop and jazz standards arranged by Lehmann in an old school building near Munich with the help of a number of musical friends in four days.
The choice of songs is excellent and fits well with the jazzy vocals of Alegria Mannhardt and the grooving double bass of Uli Lehmann. Very beautiful for example is the bossa nova song Black Orpheus with the beautiful jazzy guitar playing of Stimulators bandleader Peter Schneider.
The jazz standards (Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby, After Dark with beautiful saxophone playing by Matthias Huber, On The Sunny Side Of The Street, Irving Berlin’s How Is Deep Is The Ocean and Horace Silver’s Song For My Father with the flute of Gerhard Wagner), stand out because of the vocals of Alegria Mannhardt and are, like all the songs on the album, carried by a swinging performance of Uli Lehmann’s double bass.
The pop standard Taste Of Honey gets a beautiful, exciting performance with the accordion of Mannhardt and Lehmann’s double bass in the leading role. Patsy Cline’s country song Walking After Midnight with the pedal steel of Klaus Reichardt is also beautiful. Pop music is represented by John Lennon’s Imagine in a duo performance of Alegria and Lehmann supported by the saxophone of Stimulators colleague Marcio Tubino, John Sebastian’s What A Day For A Daydream and Stevie Nicks’ Landslide.
The live version of the Johnny Cash classic Ring Of Fire and Jerry Leiber’s Hound Dog close the album.
‘Old School Sessions’ is a beautiful example of handmade music by Index Finger (the duo Mannhardt/Lehmann), which reaches great heights with the exquisite contributions of a number of musical friends.
Website:
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Index Finger
