Among the most versatile and well-rounded American pedal steel guitarists, vocalist / composer-arrangers in the US today, Hawaii-bred, New Orleans based Dave Easley returned in late 2023 with a new album called Ballads. Similar to Dave’s 2021 solo album Byways Of The Moon, the seven-track, 40-minute Ballads was released only on vinyl LP and as a digital download on Chris Schlarb’s Long Beach, California-based Big Ego Records. It’s too bad that labels are starting to eschew CD productions for a flashback to the vinyl only era but maybe Mr. Schlarb is on to something with his Lp-only productions.

Guitar fans that follow Dave Easley will note his 2022 album with his trio A.C.E. as well as his vocal-based solo album Easley Rider and with other releases such as his band Kolotov Mocktails. Well versed in pop and rock as much as composing for his neo-classical trio, Ballads features classic jazz reimaginations that Easley has no doubt committed to memory and his arrangements are equally unique in their own right.

Musically, Ballads is an interesting choice of direction for Easley, drawing on his classic jazz background on instrumental-based pedal-steel-based covers written by Sonny Sharrock, Hoagy Carmichael, Duke Ellington, Prefab Sprout, Billy Strayhorn, Ornette Coleman and Brooks Bowman.

With Easley carrying forth his brilliant instrumental pedal steel guitar sound, he is joined by electric guitarist Jeff Parker. Working off each other on Ballads, the sound that both guitarists connect on is exciting and unique. For fans of pedal steel and jazz guitar, this album is as close to heaven as you will get in 2024. The rhythm of David Tranchina (double bass) and Jay Bellerose (drums) lays down a sonic carpet for the guitars to work their magic.

Recorded in Long Beach California on March 4th, 2022, the 7-track, 40-minute CD kicks off with an intriguing, nearly 9-minute arrangement of the Ornette Coleman classic “Lonely Woman”, the track that started Coleman’s 1959 album The Shape Of Jazz To Come. The album proceeds with an ornate Easley take on Duke Ellington’s “African Flower”, from Duke’s 1962 Money Jungle album.

Ballads kicks into high-gear with a potent Easley cover of guitarist Sonny Sharrock’s “Who Does She Hope To Be”, from the late great Sharrock’s 1991 album Ask The Ages. The track is easily a highpoint of Ballads.

Following the Sharrock cover, Dave spins magic on an all too brief cover of “Stardust” by American music composer Hoagy Carmichael. Although it clocks in at just under two minutes, Easley makes it his own.

From there, a cover of Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” shines a light on one of the truly underrated melodic masterpieces. Written in the 1930s and finally released in 1948, the song fits in perfectly on the Ballads album.

The final two Ballads tracks are quite obscure, including a cover of Brooks Bowman’s “East Of The Sun” (from 1934) and a take of U.K. rock band Prefab Sprout’s “Nightingales”, from 1988.

The album cover of Ballads by M.P. Landis is very cool while the back of the L.P. jacket features insightful liner notes, pics of the players and discography information of the tracks.

With a catalog of masterpiece albums to his credit, Dave Easley’s Ballads gives the pedal steel guitar a new and distinctive perspective as a consummate interpreter of classic jazz. One can hardly wait for master musician Dave Easley’s next musical move.