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Credits

Release Date: Feb 28, 2006; Lead Performance: Elvis Costello; Genre: Rock
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By Chris Willman
Chris Willman
Chris Willman is a senior music writer for Entertainment Weekly

The cover art of My Flame Burns Blue looks like an old Saul Bass movie poster, and sure enough, the opening track, ''Hora Decubitus'' (in which Elvis Costello adds lyrics to a Charles Mingus tune), does sound like something out of The Man With the Golden Arm, albeit transported across galaxies and genres. On Costello's first official live album, obscurities and ''Watching the Detectives'' alike are rearranged for jazz orchestra, where the '50s meets the aughts and hot bebop horn charts compete with ice-cool film-score strings. For those disinclined toward Costello's ''art'' records, occasional blues guitar solos and mad rants ward off any hoity-toitiness.


Posted Feb 24, 2006
 

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