New Orleans Piano Professor
TUTS WASHINGTON
(Rounder Select)

While not as fiery and idiosyncratic as James Booker, flamboyant as Professor Longhair or well known as Dr. John, Tuts Washington nevertheless holds a special place in the pantheon of New Orleans ivory ticklers. This CD, released the year Tuts died, collects 23 solo piano pieces, ranging from jazz standards like "Stardust" and "On the Sunny Side of the Street" to Crescent City basics ("Jambalaya," "When the Saints Go Marching In") and a whole bunch of blues and boogie. The mood here is more reflective than intense; the music ambles along, nice and relaxed, consummately charming.

This article appears in Jan 9-15, 2008.

Eric Snider is the dean of Bay area music critics. He started in the early 1980s as one of the founding members of Music magazine, a free bi-monthly. He was the pop music critic for the then-St. Petersburg...