Customer Reviews

Happy You Near

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This CD popped up when I searched Esperanza Spalding, whom I heard perform on NPR's Piano Jazz earlier this year. She vows to become the greatest bassist in the world, and maybe she will. Consider. At only twenty-four she landed a teaching job at her alma mater, the Berklee School Of Music, and has performed at The White House and on David Letterman. Today she works in the jazz department of Rutgers University. Weaving funky bass lines with the kind of scatting that makes you smile like the first time you danced and found out how much fun it was, she's attracting big audiences while turning on a new, mostly younger generation to jazz. The added benefit for us is that she sings and plays on this wonderful CD.

Noise For Pretend is Esperanza at 17-years old teaming up with two or three male musicians, all fabulous, producing a CD of the most unique sound I've ever heard. The music feels real. I wouldn't call it experimental, which too often has the tendency to grate against your ear until, alas, you 'get it.' This has an abiding ethereal, spicy groove you can relax to, dance to, or sing along with.

The album is well-balanced, a male sings two or three tracks and by the time you've get there you might start to feel like I did---as if you've been bumped up to the first row at a jazz club still open at 4am.

It's a shame Noise For Pretend is no longer together, especially considering that Esperanza's solo work does not go to the place this music goes.

This is my first Amazon review and I highly recommend this CD.

Happy You Near is a wonderful album by a talented group of kids!! The leading lady, when this album first came out was just finishing high school and getting ready to head of to some swanky college back east. She is beautiful, has a baeutiful voice and can play the upright bass like you wouldn't believe (the instrament is bigger and taller than she is), not to mention the two men backing her up as the rest of Noise For Pretend are very talented and gifted and wonderful musicians together!!

I'm a huge Esperanza fan (from knowing her current efforts) so I listened to this out of curiosity about what she sounded like when first starting out. I have to say it was much more than I expected. The music is complex and fascinating, Esperanza's voice is hypnotic, and her bass playing is great. Not to slight the other musicians - they are top-notch and the whole thing is very original. It's not the kind of music I would've sought out in the past but now I'm hooked on it. It's mesmerizing.