Customer Reviews

Sigame

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

 

 

DD Jackson plays piano with heart and soul. I know, that's a cliche, but it's true. The Welcoming is uptempo and full of life. Romanza is exactly what it promises with the title. Summer was so beautiful, I had to listen to it several times before I could move on. Not many jazz pianists can move me like that. Bill Evans comes to mind. D.D. captures life with sound. What more can a listener ask for?

Give this talented musician a listen. You won't be disappointed.

I've enjoyed D.D. Jackson's cd's before and it seems like he gets better and better with each CD. From heartwrenching melodies like Summer and Desdemona to the great jazz grooves in Jam Band and Le Shuffle, this is another great album!

If you've heard some of D.D.'s previous work, it's safe to say the man is an outstanding pianist and composer. He combines the technical and the funky and throws in a handful of beauty. Now this album is under Jackson's leadership, but his sidemen cannot go unmentioned. Dafnis Prieto, without a doubt one of the best drummers in the world today. He is an überdrummer, versatility is his game. Bassist Ugonna Okegwo is a player that can alsmot effortlessly hold his own with Jackson and Prieto. He sounds great. In the months before the album came out I was under the impression that Omer Avital would have been on bass. I'm not sure how Ugonna entered in here, but it would have been insane had Avital recorded. Nonetheless, a solid album, excellent compositions.
Two Highlights:
-The Welcoming and Sigame

Another great CD from Jackson...filled with excellent original music (all composed by him) and exquisite playing. Highly recommended.

DD Jackson's music is a rather bewildering combination of the hard-edged glisses of Don Pullen with a (sometimes cloyingly saccharine) fondness for New-Agey major-chord trips & elements of Chick Corea & Keith Jarrett. One also detects a glossiness which suggests to me a close listen to his Canadian compatriots Oscar Peterson & Oliver Jones. I've seen him twice in concert & in both cases could barely make out any of the music through the cod-19th-c. Romantic haze of pedalling.

So I'm not a fan. Still, this isn't exactly a bad disc; indeed, there's good stuff on it, as in the hardest-edged track, "Cubano-Funk". (Incidentally, this album has some of the most strangely unimaginative titles in recent memory: one's appetite is hardly whetted by titles like "Cubano-Funk", "Jam Band", "Le Shuffle", &c.) The tunes are often rather good, in fact, working nifty variations on a Latinized jazz groove with touches of modern urban rhythms; & Jackson's florid piano is often genuinely exciting. Still, the whole thing is an odd combination of stylized passion (with touches of energy-playing) &, er, cheesiness. The title track just about lands on the right side of the division between "smooth" & "cheesy" until the end, when Christian Howes' violin comes in with a truly tacky & over-the-top solo--I actually couldn't help laughing at its most overwrought moments. Another negative is the smooth guitar stylings of Freddie Bryant, which sound almost like a bid for radio airplay. -- The album ends with a fulsome solo "Prologue" (remember my comments about the dumb titles? Yep, the last track is called "Prologue")--heavily-pedalled late-Romantic stuff which DDJ just about pulls off. -- The rhythm section here calls for comment. Ugonna Okegwo does fine on the bass; the drums & percussion are supplied by Dafnis Prieto, about whom I'm rather undecided: flamboyant, rather exaggerated drumming that is very prominent in the mix.

What can I say? One would hardly mistake Jackson for another pianist--he's "original", I guess, even if the component elements of his music seem ill-fitting. Not sure I buy him as the Next Big Thing, as some have hyped him. But, OK, this is at least worth a listen. It's rather precious music a lot of the time, but has its moments.