Lluís Coloma: Boogie Portraits

Back in 2007, Barcelona’s acclaimed blues and boogie pianist Lluís Coloma decided to throw an extended party around a couple of grand pianos. Boogie Portraits is what happened next. Recorded live over four consecutive months that winter, Coloma’s fourth album opens with a blistering solo performance on “Coloma’s Boogie”. Inviting 11 piano-pounding friends to join him results in mind-melding duets with “rock-a-boogie” specialist Mitch Woods on a roof-raising version of “Red Beans”, a loping blues reading of “C.C. Rider” alongside Carl Sonny Leyland and Frank Muschalle helping to kick up the sawdust on “Honky Tonk Blues Bar Boogie”. When Chicago’s Barrelhouse Chuck gets lowdown and wails the blues on Floyd Jones’s “School Days on My Mind”, all bets are off for the standout number on this highly enjoyable record.