More in common than you'd think

Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis

Two Men With the Blues (Blue Note)

ESSENTIAL "Bright Lights Big City"

Lonesome harmonica and classy drums. Honky-tonk piano and abstract hornplay. A laid-back drawl and a cosmopolitan trumpet solo. This is the scintillating mash-up that kicks off "Bright Lights Big City," the opening song on Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis's unlikely new collaboration, "Two Men With the Blues."

Ten exuberant, tender, casually elegant tracks later you realize - much to your surprise, if you're like me - that the pairing of the grizzled country star and the suave jazz master is an unmitigated, ear-tickling success.

The album was recorded during a two-night stand at New York's Allen Room billed as "Willie Nelson Sings the Blues," part of Jazz at Lincoln Center's "Singers Over Manhattan" series. Nelson brought along his longime sideman, harmonica player Mickey Raphael, and Marsalis (artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center) assembled his stellar quartet for a set of jazz and blues standards and Nelson's own "Night Life" and "Rainy Day Blues," which fit beautifully alongside gems like "Caldonia," "Stardust," and Georgia on My Mind."

The ensemble sparkles with virtuosity, ingenuity, and gleeful repartee. Nelson is at his wizened best. But the real magic here is how each encourages the other - Nelson's plain-spoken delivery grows loose and swinging in these uptown settings, and the usually erudite Marsalis turns downright frolicsome swapping phrases with Nelson. The trumpter even sings a verse on evergreen "Ain't Nobody's Business," with Nelson testifying on the sidelines. They sound like new friends having an old conversation, and making it feel fresh again. [Joan Anderman]