Night Songs

Jonathan Kreisberg | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 17, 2009)
• Original Release Date: 2009
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Criss Cross
• ASIN: B001N5BDZM
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #230,424 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece, March 20, 2009

By 

Petri Krzywacki (Helsinki, Finland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Night Songs (Audio CD)

After two original-based albums, Kreisberg returns to standard material with this excellent CD. At least for this listener, it is a welcome thing, since a style like Kreisberg's is often better understood and appreciated when he's playing the same tunes that countless guitarists and other musicians have played for decades. When he does that, the strength of his highly evolved style becomes immediately apparent.

Kreisberg's style is easily recognizable, with chord voicings and lines that have been carefully chosen to create a coherent, yet flexible style of improvising. The constantly inspired and resourceful playing makes his style anything but predictable, and Kreisberg manages to keep his guitar playing and tone excellent throughout, which is not always the case with improvisationally oriented guitar players. This is especially evident on the tracks where he plays his Collings flattop with a gorgeous tone. Enough has been said about his outstanding melodicism, but it bears another mention. Outstanding.

The band is one of the very best anywhere these days, and the musicianship is great throughout. The rapport between Kreisberg, Penman and Ferber has been developed through countless gigs and it is just a pleasure to witness such relaxed, effortless meeting of great musical minds. And a special mention is in order about Versace who is better known as an organ player but can bring his one-of-a-kind creativity to the piano in an undeniable way. There is no run-of-the-mill mindless comping here, everything adds to the musical whole with a sparkling, vibrant tone.

Just when you think that you've heard all that can be done with these much-played standard tunes, this CD will expand your thoughts on the subject. With these open-minded musicians of the new generation of jazz greats, the tunes get naturally transformed to a new place with the other foot firmly in the tradition.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent jazz music to finish your day in the late hours...in complete balance!, November 23, 2009

By 

Veerle Anthonis "Kristiaan Van Woensel" (Belgium) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Night Songs (Audio CD)

What you see is what you get...it's all in the album title! I know Jonathan Kreisberg from his previous releases "The South of Everywhere", "New for Now, "Nine Stories Wide", which spread a diversity of sounds and tempi and demonstrate Kreisberg's great composer talent and virtuosity. I know him as well from his live performance and so I'm biased because I've seldom seen such a great band leader, guitar player, jazz musician all-in-one. If you'll ever get the chance to see him live, go check him out...and you will have yourself a memorable jazz evening!

So, I knew what to expect of Jonathan Kreisberg, but this CD was a complete surprise to me! After 5 times listening, "Night songs" turned out to be the ultimate (jazz guitar) ballads album for me, of the last 10 years! I've heard Mr.Kreisberg on acoustic guitar in 'Laura' and 'September song'(Django was not far away!), 'Nefertiti',...I've heard a very melodic playing Kreisberg in "Autumn in New York"(his playing did remind me a lot to my fellow countryman's style, Philip Catherine), ...I've heard a smooth light swinging Kreisberg in "I'll be seeing you". I can only conclude by saying that Jonathan Kreisberg's guitar play is so clean, transparant and above all, very melodic. This is Jonathan Kreisberg's other side, the gentle swinging ballads side, ...a suprise at first sight, but than quality is there again! All credits to Garry Versace, Matt Penman and Mark Ferber!

1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Kreisberg's weakest effort to date, October 16, 2009

By 

gk - See all my reviews

This review is from: Night Songs (MP3 Download)

I love Jonathan Kreisberg and own all of his CDs - my favorite is probably Trioing (2002), though all except this one are great. (Kreisberg is a great composer! Unlike most musicians, who only 'compose' for the royalties, you don't have to be afraid of Kreisberg's originals - this guy is for real.)

I would have downloaded the entire CD without hesitation, except that I didn't want to install amazon's required 'downloader' app (why couldn't amazon offer an archive file of the entire album?), that warns me that it WILL take control of my iTunes library - and I will risk losing years of work - a database that I have spent countless hours improving with id3v2 tag data entry - all for the sake of one single download ?! (amazon, are you kidding?), and might (amazon does not advertise this feature) mess up my system?

So I started going down the song list, downloading individual mp3 files, assuming I would buy them all, in due course ...

The first track, Laura, stopped me in my tracks (my mother's, and daughter's name, which I love very much and am thinking in terms of Earl Klugh's version)

I am pre-disposed to love this song, but it was really harsh on my ears - way too stark (guitar melody, piano chords, nothing in between)! I was hoping for something loving, or at least soft, lush or mellow. Very bad sequencing, at least (do you hear this, whoever you are, Kreisberg's producer? Don't make a radical departure from all of Kreisberg's previous recordings track #1! I might have enjoyed it, as track #10 - by then you might have earned my trust, but you couldn't wait ...).

The first problem is that steel-string acoustic guitar is a questionable choice for jazz, in my opinion (it lacks the horn-like qualities that work best; sometimes it works (only Bireli LaGrene, Larry Coryell, Sylvan Luc come to mind ...); add to this the fact that the arrangement was a duo with piano (intonation is always an issue when guitar and piano collide; organ is less of an offender) that also sounds too loud in the mix, and the song becomes un-listenable. Bad start. I don't know how many other tracks have this instrumentation since I only downloaded three and won't download any more.

I thought I was going to hear a standard jazz trio and got piano + guitar - never mind the fact that it was my fault for not listening before buying - I trusted Kreisberg based on many previous CDs. This one is different - be forewarned.

I purchased a couple more tunes (Autumn in New York; Blue in Green) but they didn't really float my boat, though at least we were back to a trusted jazz trio format.

If you're a die-hard fan like me, no harm done (Kreisberg can do no wrong), but if you are new to Kreisberg, don't start with this.