The Final Painting is the final album by renowned Poet, songwriter and artist Ed Askew, who put his first album out on ESP-Disk back in 1968. Final Painting was recorded with help from Sharon Van Etten, Eve Searls, Canaan Faulkner, Bill Callahan, William Tyler, Ryan Jewell, Dustin Laurenzi, Fulvio Sigurta & Trevor Nikrant and was produced by Jerry David Decicca and completed shortly before Ed passed away in January just after he selected the painting used on the cover.
The album opens with Winter Song with Ed accompanied by slow jazz guitar and clarinet, he is hoping to build a better world to the one he is about to depart from, he still has his sanity, unlike the man coming down the road singing to himself, this is down hearted yet hopeful.
Bacon & Eggs is slow reflections of one of those days when you see people waiting for the bus, Ed's cracked emotional vocals tell us just how much he loved his breakfast of Bacon & Eggs, before he walks back to Broadway, the slow strings seem to mark time for the everyday mundane scenes he is describing, like he may never see such scenes again, while the great holiday escape is happening all around him.
Long Night is full of the memories and wonderment of meeting you for the first time, how totally transfixed you were by the angelic presence you felt deeply within, dreaming and hoping for a magical kiss and the chance to sing you a lullaby. Lost In The Kitchen is an imaginary dream of you looking out the window of his kitchen, with the sparse piano and percussion backing this fond remembrance.
A Train Is A Thought like a long-lost memory being dredged up from the depths, Ed can't laugh or cry any more, just sit and reflect on what this all means, a lone harmonica plays a lament. Gray Air-O-Plane is slow reflections with careful harmonies accentuating the thoughts and places being evoked, a minimalist jazz backing full of fraught beauty and serenity while he gazes at the sky once more.
Someone uses gentle strings and percussion with the barely their vocals flicking through Ed's book of tears, waiting for Someone to help lift him from this torpor, while listening to the echoes of Chet Baker coming through the slow trumpet part.
Tough Guys has subtle strings and brass parts for this depiction of being asked to paint a portrait of a couple of Tough Guys in 1980 New York, this has none of the Mafioso cliches you might expect, they are not in Hells Kitchen, while Ed plays his out of tune piano to put them at ease.
The album closes with Nightingale one last carefully enunciated tale of time flying in his daydreams of tough guys, all the adventures past, like a movie scrolling backwards, angelic backing vocals adding a tender edge.
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