Customer Reviews

Intersections 1985-2005 (W/Dvd) (Spkg)

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Fair disclosure: I've known Bruce Hornsby for 30 years but have never allowed that cloud my critical judgement of his work.

Saying such, let me be the first to state his box set is amongst the most articulate and honest career retrospective compendia in the history of music. Mr. Hornsby has never been one to play it safe and stay predictable. The familiar favorites -- and there are many! -- have been retooled and served freshly anew. This collection is filled with gems.

Millions of listeners prefer the comfort of knowing their music note-for-note. That's why the likes of Eagles, Paul Simon and Chicago continue to do so well; they're the same show-after-show, year-after-year. But for those of us who appreciate the high-wire challenges presented by Mr. Hornsby, the artistic rewards are breathtaking.

We all know what syncopation does for a song. And while it's true that Mr. Hornsby is masterful at shifting accents within a tune, it's also true that he's pulled off the remarkable feat of syncopating his entire body of work in this overview.

It's my judgement that only Van Morrison and Miles Davis have so continuously evolved their music whilst carrying the loyal to newer heights each time.

Asking me to pick a favorite cut, or CD for that matter, from the box set is sort of like picking your favorite child. Simply impossible. The level of performance and song selection never drops below excellence. Many times, these qualities are staggering. Not once will you hear a single note played for the sake of purely being clever, however. Mr. Hornsby is comfortable with his wide scope of aptitude, unconcerned about unnecessary emphasis, and always tasty in his delivery.

It all coheres.

The last CD that brought me this much joy was Randy Newman's "Songbook, Vol. 1," which was my selection for 2003 CD Of The Year. Mr. Newman rebooted standards in his earlier catalogue, then reintroduced the songs more fully realized to his fan base who also had matured. That's precisely the platform upon which Mr. Hornsby has so ably built his box set.

So here's my recommendation. Buy this for the plentiful rewards. Your appreciation for the songs herein will expand exponentially.

In short, you'll experience an artist at his zenith.

Bruce Hornsby has released this fantastic Box Set of 4 Audio CD's and 1 DVD and it is worthy of the great talent of this fantastic musician. If you haven't been grabbing up every CD he has released since 1985 it would not be a mistake to start right here. There are reworked versions of his hit tunes that have not seen the light of day before this box such as: "The Way It Is" "Mandolin Rain" "The Valley Road" "Look Out Any Window" & "The End Of The Innocence" that will floor-you...

And for all of us who have been purchasing the original CD's there is lot's of Un-Released Cuts and almost every tune we are already familar with is presented in a Brand New arrangement so that they sound Fresh & New in these new and / or Live Settings.

I Own over 60 Box Sets by a lot of Different Artists, but it is easy to tell you that "Intersections" would place in my Top Five of all the Sets because this Music is Timeless. The Talent of this Great Artist is a 10 on a 10 scale, Jazz, Rock, Bluegrass, Classical, Rag-Time it's all right here in Bruce"s fingertips. This is American Music in the sense that you can HEAR the sound of New Orleans, Wiiliamsburg, New York City, San Francisco and Detroit all in the course of one song and that is the POWER of this music.

From the Range to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band to the Grateful Dead to Spike Lee, Bruce has covered lot's of ground and on these 4 CD's you get to enjoy the ride of the last 20 years of Music. The Fifth Disc is a DVD of Music Videos and Live Clips and it's packed with 23 cuts and adds extra value to an already Great Package.

BUY THIS NOW...

I didn't think anything could beat Richard Thompson's Life & Music for Greatest Box Set Of 2006 - but now we've got this small goldmine showing the depth of Bruce Hornsby's ever-fruitful career. Does the world really deserve such riches?

Hyperbole aside, I'm perfectly serious when I say this is very likely the box-set release of the decade. As Sean Brickell says below: it's his eternal restlessness that makes Bruce such a fascinating figure (not to mention a playful genre-be-damned attitude toward all music and a tremendous piano virtuosity that never once succumbs to flash). For anyone not yet familiar, all I can offer is a hopelessly inadequate description - upbeat jazz-pop-rock tinged with anything from R&B/funk to bluegrass and the odd classical quote, conveyed with an infectious warmth & humor and a coherence that belies such eclectic elements. Now go buy Spirit Trail ASAP.

In addition to compiling a small heap of tunes from scattered soundtracks and tribute albums ("Big Stick"! "Shadowland"!), Intersections has 23 previously unreleased live tracks. As usual for Bruce, of course none of these are presented quite the same as on record. "Valley Road" alone appears three times - once as a thumping slow-groove piece, once as a yee-haw bluegrass tune and once in a bouncing Grateful Dead blues performance - none of which sound anything like the original. Some live tracks are new solo versions. Some are reinventions. Some get combined with an oddball cover or two from the likes of Johnny Cash or Bud Powell or Sam Cooke or Pink Floyd. Recycled material? Pfah. A few tracks do appear from the original records, but superb mastering makes them sound better than ever.

And that's not to mention the DVD which has even more great tunage. The music videos are OK (are those Muppets we see in "Swing Street"?), but the additional rare/unreleased material is even better. Check "The Mighty Quinn" with BB King just for starters.

This collection manages to compile many disparate diamonds from an already-great catalogue, make it all work together and stand as a complete listening experience on its own. Even if you've got everything the man's officially put out, you've got less than half of this. It's worth every penny. Box set of the decade, anyone?

This is not just some box set with all the hits from older albums there are so many unreleased tracks and live cuts that make this a must have for the Hornsby fan! I was glad to see the collection of music video's to round out the set. Well worth the price !

Any Bruce fan can tell you Bruce is awesome live and every show is different!

Great box set! Thanks Bruce

Another reviewer rated this box set the second best set of the decade and after a thorough listen I certainly have to agree. The set consists of 4 CD's and a DVD...each cd has its own chemistry and is very well assembled with original versions of Bruce's greatest material. The first cd features mainly alternate and live versions of Bruce's greatist hits which is a rare treat given to the listener that usually only gets the re-hashed studio versions they've heard a thousand times already. The second cd is mainly instrumental with movie scores mixed in...it's a tremendous pleasure to listen to and an original concept for box sets that typically are just a giant collection of greatest hits. The third and fourth cd's are comprised of mainly live versions of the most requested concert material which is the ultimate gift to a true fan. (I have not listened to the DVD yet as my player is broken but I certainly look forward to it!). Overall, this is a refreshingly brilliant collection of Bruce's best songs all in live or alternate versions which makes it feel as though the material is new. This innovative box set is so well produced it should be the blueprint by which all other box sets should be put together. It amazes me that so many other artists just hack out stuidio versions of their songs and fail to give the listener the ingenuity demonstrated on this box set. (It also amazes me that XM or Sirius aren't playing the heck out of this set but then again satellite radio never fails to underwhelm and under-achieve).

My only complaint is that Hot House was not included in this set but I guess you just can't have it all. Bruce Hornsby deserves the ulimate accolade for assembling this masterpiece and certainly no fan should be without it...get it at any cost.

This boxed set of Bruce Hornsby's music is simply astonishing.

For a few years, in the late-1980s, Bruce was hot commercially, producing a string of hits. (Re-visiting his music by listening to this boxed set, it's surprising how many hits he had!) Then the public's musical taste moved on. For a while, that bothered him, because he wasn't selling as many records as he had. But, he told me a few years ago, he finally stopped worrying about trying to please a fickle record-buying public. Instead, he decided to simply work on his craft.

That's why the music on Intersections is astonishing. Many of the 53 songs in the set are live. (For those who want to hear the hits exactly as they sounded, there's a DVD included of the 1980s videos made of those hits.) But his playing from more recent years shows that his musicianship is far better now than it was when the public was in love with him! And, since he's not worried about selling records, his music has become beyond classification. He was a classically-trained piano perfomance major in college. Some of the selections on Intersections are classical -- almost. His various arrangements turn many of his hits into jazz -- almost.

Maybe I can describe it in this way: Bruce plays rock and roll from the foundation of classical training, and, in the performance, the songs stretch out with jazz-like improvising. His band is full of incredibly accomplished musicians who are able to play off each other like members of a jazz group do. But there are also many solo pieces in the set. And there are songs Bruce plays with the Grateful Dead, with the Nitty Gritty Dirt band and Ricky Skaggs (bluegrass), with Branford Marsalis (one of the best working saxophonists today); there's even one track of Bruce playing free jazz with the legendary Ornette Coleman!

It is comon in jazz for musicians to play "the standards." Each time, the song is recognizable, but the arrangements and interpretations are so varied that it is as if listening to a new song. The same thing impresses me about the music in this boxed set. Consider each Bruce Hornsby song to be a "standard." The presentations are so diverse in this set that, each time, it is as if listening to a new song.

Intersections is a collection of tracks from a unique, highly accomplished and simply astonishing musician.

No, this isn't the usual 'all the familiar "Greatest Hits" in one place' type of collection, so if that's what you're looking for you're better off just getting the single disc Radio Hits. Instead, we get vastly different versions of those familiar hits, which will undoubtably be unsetteling to casual fans.

Anyone who has seen Hornsby in concert knows that he rarely plays a song the same way twice - just one of the many reasons he has such a rabid following who go to see him time and again. He manages to rearrange his songs just enough to keep it interesting for everyone (himself included) without ruining the original brilliance of the compositions.

I was drawn to this particular box set after hearing the Fortunate Son/Comfortably Numb medley on the radio. I knew it wasn't on the live album which came out a few years ago, so one quick look on Amazon pointed to this new collection. As others have stated, the current price for this box on Amazon is indeed a steal.

In addition to the always interesting alternate versions of older favorites on the audio CDs, the DVD is quite excellent and (as others have said) worth the price of admission. The highlights on the DVD for me are the versions of Dylan's "Quinn the Eskimo" - lifted almost note for note from Leon Russell's version on Leon Live (and this is a good thing!) and the duet of "The Star Spangled Banner" with Branford Marsalis. If I am dissapointed with anything, it would be the fact that there is no version of Dylan's "When I Paint My Masterpiece" here. That particular song was always a highlight for me at Honrsby's concerts in the 90s.

While the approach to this set may seem a bit eccentric to some fans, what we're left with is a stellar collection of an amazing musician at the top of his form. As a fan, I really couldn't ask for more.

...so do I really need to buy the box set?"

Let's assume you're like me: you own all the Bruce Hornsby albums (except Greatest Radio Hits), but

(a) you haven't obsessively bought every album of any artist where he's played in at least one track (you didn't buy Two Rooms, for instance, just to hear Hornsby play "Madman on the Water");

(b) you don't own any singles;

(c) you're not the concert-trading type.

Eliminating album versions of songs from this 53-track (not counting DVD) collection, I found 38 tracks had music I didn't yet own. 71% new!

What's in those 38 tracks?

* The various instrumental lettered songs, from Song A through Song H.

* Great versions of non-Hornsby-authored songs like "Darlin' Cory", "Jack Straw", and "Madman Across the Water."

* A good number of unique new live versions of older songs, such as a haunting version of "A Night on the Town" and a great piano-only rendition of "Sticks and Stones"--as well as the traditional "The Way It Is", "Mandolin Rain", and the rest.

Like another reviewer, I've found Disc 2 my favorite; it contains a number of instrumental pieces and collaborations on songs by other musicians. Of the four CDs, it contains the largest amount of material I didn't own or hadn't heard before.

But don't discount the other CDs. There are some great live versions on each. To get the best listening experience, if you already own all the studio albums, you may want to burn your own custom CDs from this set to pare this down to three CDs or so.

So for the price of about two CDs, you're getting three new CDs' worth of material, plus a DVD that contains music videos and concert footage, including a couple of songs, like "Go Back to Your Woods", that aren't on the CDs.

I'd call that a good deal.

Having only heard a couple of songs of Hornsby's from the 80s eg The Way it is etc, i saw this box set and thought it would be like so many other collections. the classic collections are all of the songs of the times with unrecorded versions and with a few live versions as well.

i was surprised by the fact that this was not what i expected and there are not many of the original recordings and many of them have been totally reworked and taken in a new direction which has been sensational. I actually prefer a lot of the rearrangements to the original recordings.

For those who like to hear a song as it was originally recorded track down the original albums and relisten to them. That is one of the benefits of having recordings of the songs, in that you can listen to them when you want.

There is a dvd of many of his clips which gives some of the original recordings for those who do want them.

If you like the concept of a musical journey with the composer then get your hands on this set as you get a better idea of how music is so important to him. It goes beyond any expectations i had and it is much better than i could have hoped for.

This is essential buying for any person who loves piano based music.

Is there anyone else in contemporary music who can compose songs (both music and words) with such depth and then deliver them in such a fun collection as this? For a fan from this side of the world unable to see Bruce live, this is as good as it gets, and boy its good. There were many unexpected musical journeys amongst the tracks for me, and the contrast in styles across the collection is amazing. Even if you know only a little about this man's music, you should buy this collection- it's worth it just for the 11 minutes and 50 seconds journey in his "White Wheeled Limousine", let alone the other 52 tracks! Brilliant.