THE BRYAN FERRY ORCHESTRA

The Jazz Age

[BMG]

Bryan Ferry is no stranger to albums filled with cover songs. But The Jazz Age, credited to the Bryan Ferry Orchestra, is something different: 13 songs, spanning Roxy Music’s first single to Ferry’s most recent solo album, done in the style of 1920s jazz. It’s so lovingly and faithfully recreated that you’re half expecting the clicks and pops of vintage 78s on these lo-fi mono recordings. The Jazz Age also differs from, say, Let’s Stick Together or Dylanesque because Ferry’s deep, familiar croon is absent on these instrumentals. Trumpet and sax soloists take lead on tightly arranged, flawlessly played versions of Roxy Music’s “Love Is the Drug” and “Virginia Plain,” and “Reason or Rhyme” from Ferry’s 2010 album Olympia. But where’s the heart? It amounts to an authentic, intriguing, occasionally passionless recreation of a long-gone period. –Michael Gallucci