Customer Reviews

Rising Sun

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I like Najee's music I like this cd.It starts of with the John Mayer song Clarity from his Heavier-Things CD. Clarity is a soothing and serene song .I would give a listen to the orginal song Clarity it has differnt ending.
all the songs on the CD are good because Najee is a very good musician. He can make magic happen when he plays furthermore,you can feel the joy and the energy in his music. When he plays he plays from the heart and soul. I have been a fan for years because he is simply brillant keep making beautiful music Najee

Najee, what can I say, I've not heard a Najee Cd that I didn't like< yet this one is a masterpiece, the nice favor and some real nice mixes that were quite relaxing. I started flipping though the tracts like I always do, yet I found myself listening to each track in it's entirety. Nice job a real must have.

What can you say. He has done it again! I love it!!! Great producers working on this project including James Lloyd.

First of all, I damn near missed this release and if it was not for my good friend's record store, I would have. St. Louis lost its smooth jazz station over 2 years ago and even when it was on the air, Najee was nowhere near being a featured artist on the station.

Now to the album, I can hear a bit of old Najee with the title track(especially with the flute) and Come What May - these tracks take me back to my days of having his music on cassettes. I have always loved his vocal R&B/smooth jazz jams (Betcha Don't Know and All I Ever Ask first come to mind) and he did not disappoint with Can't Wait Another Minute and the dreamy Romance the Night (another Najee throwback song) performed by East St. Louis' own Phil Perry.

One of the knocks on Najee has always been his so-called lightweight horn when compared to the masters of yesteryear, Coltrane, Bird etc. but we all are influenced by what we grew up with and I imagine Najee grew up listening to Motown of the 60s as well as jazz. When he started to form his own thang, he incorporated those things and for that I ain't mad at him at all. One of the surprises of the year for me since it had been awhile since his last release and the smooth jazz scene has been slow - could it be because of the lack of a smooth jazz radio station in da STL? Anyway, if U do not have this already, get to the store immediately because the man can still blow dat horn.

Najee has put together a lot of good CDs over the years. This one is certainly up there, although it's noteworthy that a few of the better songs are of the up-tempo variety. Chris "Big Dog" Davis is involved in a number of the songs on here, and it's not hard to see the influence and that Davis is a rising star in the jazz world as a musician, writer and producer.

It starts with a nice up-tempo song in "Clarity", then comes more vintage Najee with "Brazilian Affair", the very mellow "Child At Heart" and a nice ballad, "Can't Wait Another Minute". (The last is not a cover of the hit by Hi-Five.)

"Come What May" is the best song on the CD, and a little change for a man who's known for more mellow tunes. But "Come What May" picks up the pace very nicely and with a great beat. He follows it up with another good one, "Out of a Dream", which also picks up the tempo. Both also feature James Lloyd of Pieces of a Dream fame.

After that, he slows it down again very nicely with "Moody's Mood For Love" and later "Romance the Night," which features Phil Perry on vocals. In between, he picks the pace back up slightly with "Still In Love", the latter of which bears a little resemblance to Boney James' hit "Metropolis" from 1992. He closes with "Smooth Sailing" and the title cut, on which he plays the flute.

I have been kinda of hesitant about Najee's music it was kind of becoming mundane to the point of sappy! And as I started to listen to this CD I played it in my car, a mistake at first cause the first couple of cuts almost put me to sleep! Then it started to get nice and funky! Oh yeah you can ride to this and then I got hit with a so-so rendition of Moody's Blues, after grooving then taking me back to yawns ville it picked me back up to take me home. If it did not start off so slow and drag with the MB song I probably would have went for 4 stars.

rising sun najee--I was taken back by najee's latest cd. I have all of his releases back to 1987. This one took me back to his roots back in the eighties. Nothing wrong with a little old school, Najee. Great mixture of musical tempos in each cut, some fast, mid tempo and slow. Keep it up, Najee. I heartily recommend this CD a must for all Najee fans and smooth jazz fans.

This performance sounds inspired and thought out. Not thrown together for the purpose of a quick buck. All of the music compliments each other and accompanies the sax in excellence. The entire CD is enjoyable with several standouts.

It's like the sound of a smooth; soothing lake. And then he gets a little funky w/some old sounds from back in the day. Which, I think, is great. The sax can be a smooth sound and it also can be a hard sound but not cocky in some of the cuts. All in All I liked it alot.

Keith