Amazing Steel Guitar: The Buddy Emmons Collection
Nashville has always been filled with country musicians who  moonlight playing jazz. Superb session guitaristHank Garland, who played  alongside country stars such as Patsy Cline and Elvis Presley, also  waxed an album with jazz heavy Gary Burton.Speedy West and Jimmy  Bryant, the phenomenal steel guitar/electric guitar tandem,  incorporated heavy doses of bebop into their work. Emmons too was  bitten early by the jazz bug, and this 16-song retrospective proves he  had the chops to fit in. The first three cuts find the then-19-year-old  Emmons backed by Little Jimmy Dickens's Country Boys. Of most  significance, however, is the presence of 1963'sSteel Guitar  Jazz, which includes jazz contemporaries Booby Scott, Charlie  Persip, and Jerome Richardson. Emmons glides through standards, old  ballads, and even handles Sonny Rollins's "Oleo" and Horace Silver's  "The Preacher." His atmospheric, mood-creating work on the slow numbers  is as impressive as his rippling runs on the uptempo tunes. Emmons is  the consummate "musicians' musician."--Marc Greilsamer