Van Morrison has been moving toward this release for many years now, though with three outings since September of 2017, it’s obvious that there was something roaming around inside of his musical soul, where together with Joey DeFrancesco he’s finally been able to get out, and to that end, I’m sitting here with a mile wide sense of satisfaction as the album plays on in the background.Morrison has always challenged himself and has been known by the company he keeps, yet never more so than here on You’re Driving Me Crazy, where teaming up with organist and jazz legend Joey DeFrancesco, a man with so much history and versatile talent that it was impossible for Morrison’s visions not to come to fruition. With that in mind, Morrison has stepped back in time with this concept, back to a period when record labels such as Prestige and Blue Note would set up a room, where the artists would knock back an entire album in a couple of days. Along with players such as Troy Roberts on tenor sax, drummer Michael Ode, Dan Wilson on guitars, and even Morrison’s very talented daughter Shana, the combo serves up a smoking hot throwback, where I’m actually surprised that the session wasn’t released in glorious mono, though finding an engineer who can set up a mono recording space is probably a challenge today.Aside from the exceptional music presented, one instantly feels that Morrison is excited and inspired here, with the same delight I sensed on Too Long In Exile from more years ago than I care to remember. There’s much I could say about Joey DeFrancesco, first that he was born literally around the corner from me in Springfield, Pennsylvania, where as a mere teenager his local jazz and bebop stylings caught the attention of Miles Davies, making him the youngest artist to hit the road with Miles, then Jimmy Smith, where at 16 signed his first personal record deal. At 47, this vocalist, trumpeter and organist has close to thirty-five albums to his credit, and shows no signs of slowing down. No doubt about it, the series of dexterous songs on this album are equaled only by the dexterous players brought together, where a communal spirit arises, where the band doesn’t so much play these songs, more that these numbers flow characteristically out of each individual, where the collective whole is nothing short of inspirational, alive, where the songs chosen were designed to nurture the artists, and the players in turn breathe actual life into these notes, never forced, allowing them to rise like the sun, and laced with elongated notes, they set like the moon. With the album clocking in at seventy-one minutes in length, the expertise brought to light, created the defining sense that You’re Driving Me Crazy was inherently far too short.Everyone on this record comes off as energetic and inspired, everyone’s game has been elevated, the music roams between traditional blues and jazz standards, along with Morrison’s own back catalog, all presented in a fashion that will bring new listeners and fans of these two great men into their respective folds. This album is essential, it’s childhood comfort food, meatloaf potatoes and gravy set down on your (turn) table with a smile, music where the sum of it’s parts goes onto create a resounding whole that has redefined the essence of Van Morrison.Review by Jenell Kesler