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BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DRAMS is the latest release from Refined Records, whose noble mission is to feature acoustic instrumentation while keeping synthetic doctoring and programming to a minimum. BOULEVARD, accordingly, is as spare and real as one would expect. The Robin Nolan Trio is a stripped down affair --- Robin Nolan on solo guitar, Kevin Nolan on acoustic guitar, and Paul Meander on acoustic bass and kitchen bongos --- with Randy Greer as vocalist.

The result sounds as if you've invited a group of master musicians into your living room to run through a series of jazz and pop standards. The neighbors, believe me, will not complain. Randy Greer comes from a line of musicians who have been present at, and part of, the laying of several milestones of jazz. His great-uncle played drums in Duke Ellington's orchestra, while Greer's father owned a San Francisco jazz club named Soulville (in North Beach, if memory serves), where, as legend has it, Charles Mingus baptized young Greer one night with red wine. Greer has been honing his craft and during a tour of Europe met up with the Robin Nolan Trio who were playing in Amsterdam at the time. The result is BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS, a 15-track walkthrough of standards with a gypsy jazz treatment.

The simultaneous strength and weakness of a project like this is that even the biggest headbanging moron on earth will be at least passingly familiar with this material. "September Song," "The Shadow of Your Smile," "Take the A Train," and "It don't Mean A Thing" have all been imprinted on the national consciousness. My own personal litmus test here was "Route 66." "Route 66" was written by Bobby Troup (who later had a recurring role on a TV sitcom, it might have even been...F-Troop), and has been recorded by everyone from Julie London (who had a later recurring role as an emergency room nurse on some TV drama) to The Rolling Stones (I have two different versions of the song by them). And the verdict here is not bad, not bad at all. Greer treats the tune with a warm vocal bath and some interesting phrasing. He and the trio obviously feel comfortable with each other, making everything come together quite nicely. I'm reminded for some reason of Mose Allison. There's no piano on here, and Greer sounds positively manic compared to Allison's trademark laid-back delivery, but there's a hipness to this bad boy that can't be manufactured. Allison's best work has it, and so do Nolan and Company.

One of the great joys of Refined releases in general, and THE BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS in particular, is that given the acoustic instrumentation and spare arrangements, there's nowhere to hide. The musicians and vocalists either have the chops or they don't. In this case, they most definitely, definitely do. Recommended.