Customer Reviews

Velvet

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

 

 

I first heard chris standring's "velvet" on jazz trax with art good 2 years ago. i ended up buying the cd and i was impressed with the talent of this young man! the title track "velvet" is only a taste of the beauty of this guy's guitar, to get you going you have to listen to "nuff said" as well as "steven" two other songs on this album i became hooked on after the first listens to them. standring's guitar playing and the hip-hop,jazz,he puts together on this album makes this album a bonafide must have, for you guitar fans, go out and get "velvet" it is a [price] you will not regret spending

I bought the Hip Sway cd first. Then Groovalicious, now Velvet. Does that tell you anything about how much I like this guy? This guy is fantastic with the guitar. He is funky soulful jazzie all rolled up in to one smooth groove. He jams from beginning to the end on all of these cds. You can't go wrong with either album.

The production quality is a little 'plastic' in nature, but there is a lot of originality in the music here. Accompanied by some established 'smooth jazz' heavyweights (Rick B. & Kirk W. for example), this album attempts - and succeeds in my view - to push the boundaries of the smooth jazz genre into new territory. It takes a little while to fully appreciate all that's going on beneath the obvious catchy melodies, but 'Velvet' is musically a classic recording of our time. If you can't yet see it, maybe, one day, your kids will tell you why. An essential addition to your collection.

Every morning, over breakfast and paper, I tune in the Weather Channel for both near term and long term forecast and the highlight of it all is the funky sounding 36 hour forecast backed by what I call the "funky weather channel groove" sound. I have been wondering what this sound really is and where it comes from and this CD has it nailed. Now what I want to do is make a tape of it and then voice it over with stuff like "rain showers likely, with possible thunderstorms" or "gradually clearing and warmer".

"Velvet" has enough catchy melodies, from the shuffling beat of Silhouette to the driving Velvet. Standring plays a notch above "smooth" jazz, but no means sounding like early Benson. (acid jazz?) Overall a easy to listen to cd, even though I found the rhythm tracks on some of the cuts similar.

An extremely PHAT recording that even "NON JAZZ" listeners find pleasantly seductive!

I really like this jazzy album especially Track 5. It is a good blend of upbeat, funky, and melodic tracks that will put you in a positive mindset any time of the day.

Veronica Jackson

Listening to velvet just melts my troubles away. A great CD. Just when you thought there were no more great jazz guitarists, along comes Chris. Lets hope he can make it over to the u.k real soon.

I love every song on this CD! Chris is a talented jazz guitarist that has put out one heck of a debut CD. This CD will have your toes tapping to a hip, funky, cool guitar sound. Highly recommended!

Chris Standring serves up some typically laid-back guitar grooves on an album that falls into the distinctly "pleasant background music" zone - all very charming but coming dangerously close at several points to being skilfully bland. But... hidden in here is something very different - track 5: "Velvet". Its title suggests more of the same but it is in fact a bustling, highly distinctive hip-hop/jazz work-out that shows how Standring's softly melodic guitar playing can be made much more interesting & creative when it's mixed into a more complex, harder hitting arrangement. A stand-out track that keeps this album's head above the comfortably lush waters that threaten to swamp it.