JIM SELF, My America 3: My Country

America sure felt like a different place back in the post 9/11 era when tuba maestro, “fluba” inventor and legendary Hollywood film score musician Jim Self joined forces with prolific arranger Kim Scharnberg to pay homage to our country via My America – a collection putting his unique horn flair on classic tunes associated with our history and diverse geography. Things still felt relatively calm two decades later when Self went full throttle into his affection for special places in the U.S. on My America 2: Destinations.

Now that we’re in a different, chaotic, more socio-politically divided era, with mostly bad, discouraging or downright horrifying news filling our bandwidth on a daily basis, we literally have a crying need to remember great things about this land – which makes Self’s much quicker follow-up My America 3: My Country, also soulfully and adventurously arranged by Scharnberg, feel absolutely essential. The collection’s subtitle is a bit of a play on words as Self, tuba-ing and fluba-ing with his usual blend of graceful low-toned sensitivity and boisterous brassiness, boldly embraces both the joyous/whimsical and subtle/sensitive creative possibilities of jazzy explorations of classic, wildly familiar country music and Americana tunes, from “Jolene” “Crazy” and “Sixteen Tons” to “Rocky Top,” “Wichita Lineman” and “Your Cheating Heart.”

To make this happen, Self leads a large, adaptable ensemble combining jazz stalwarts like pianist Bill Cunliffe and drummer Joe La Barbera with the country-minded likes of Chris Woods (country fiddle), Doug Livingston (pedal steel guitar), Steve Fister (electric dobro, slide guitars). While the ballad arrangements of classics by Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson/Patsy Cline, Glen Campbell and Hank Williams are certainly lovely and touching, it’s the buoyant tunes and barnburners like “Rocky Top,” “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” (which quotes playfully from “Sweet Georgia Brown”) and the mashup of “Wabash Cannonball” and “Orange Blossom Special” (cleverly titled “Wabashed”) that makes this set worth the price of admission.

Over the course of 20+ albums, Self always includes at least one excellent original, and he gets things off to a great start here with a whinnying horse introducing and punctuating the jamming “Chomping at the Bit,” which true to its title, keeps us hungry for all the goodies the tuba master and his cohorts deliver.