The CD ‘Love Notes of Cole Porter’, recorded with a very tight quartet (with two different drummers) is without exaggeration, up there with the finest organ jazz of the classic era. A collection of the finest love songs to flow from the pen of the legendary Cole Porter, many classics of what the cliché machine has designated the ‘Great American Songbook’, ‘Love Notes…’ sees (hears) Gene and his band, Mark Strickland on guitar, Lou Stellute on tenor and Thomas Wendt and Billy Kuhn alternating on drums (all very good), working in the classic Prestige/Blue Note style, and when I say that I’m not just blowing smoke.

The late 50s and 1960s saw a lot of different varieties of practitioners recording on the Hammond organ, from purely soul/R&B based cats working it out on now rare 45s (like Louis Chachere, RD Stokes and Leo Valentine), post-bop visionaries like Larry Young, and the cats running in the mainstream like Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff and Groove Holmes, all of whom were widely recorded with widely varied results.

During the early part of his career, Gene Ludwig didn't have the opportunity to record as frequently as many of those that I would consider his peers. Whether or not the consistently high quality of what he did record was merely a matter of conservation, i.e. never having been pressured to create more accessible/less inspiring records, or because all he had in him to create was pure class (I lean toward the latter) his legacy is smaller, and dare I say better.

That his final album reinforces that assessment is worth noting.

‘Love Notes of Cole Porter’ is every bit the equal of the best, swinging bop and soul organ sessions of the instrument’s (and Gene's) golden era.

‘Love Notes of Cole Porter’ is also a gift to remind us that age need not be an impediment to a musicians growth. People do a lot of lip service to concepts like ‘maturity’ and ‘experience’, but listening to Gene wail and swing on this session one is treated to the sound of 70 years of technical prowess, seasoned by good taste and above all soul.

Another great thing about ‘Love Notes…’ is that alongside of well know material like ‘Night and Day’, ‘You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To’ and ‘What Is This Thing Called Love’, bona fide standards, covered hundreds of times by all manner of instrumentalists and singers, Gene works out on less familiar, but also exceptional numbers from Porter’s catalog like ‘I Love You’ and ‘Dream Dancing’.

This is serious, wonderfully played jazz and a fitting final statement from one of the great practitioners of the art.

You can pick up ‘Love Notes of Cole Porter’ directly from Big O Records, or over at CD Baby, where you can get it as a CD or as an MP3 download. You can hear samples of the album at both sites. It’s also available at iTunes, but make sure you search by the title, as a search of 'Gene Ludwig' only returns his older albums.
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