Tickles my ivories

When a jazz pianist works Billy Strayhorn ("The Star-crossed Lovers") and Tom Waits ("Midnight Lullaby") tunes into a disk, not to mention five nifty compositions of her own, she's going to get my attention and Dawn Clement does on "Hush." All the better that she's quite a powerful piano player (kind of the anti-Diana Krall), although I might like to hear her working on the outside a little more overall, as she does on "Alone Together." Her playing on the Astor Piazzolla Tango "Coral" is stunning. Nice bass and drums work on this CD, Clement's first, by Geoff Cooke and Jose Martinez as well.