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68 of 71 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Artist At His Zenith, July 25, 2006
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.
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25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
BEST BOX SET OF 2006, September 14, 2006
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 Incredable musician. If you haven't been grabbing up every CD he has released since 1985 it would not be a mistake to start here, there are 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...
For those of us that have been buying 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...
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30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A treasure trove!, August 1, 2006
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?
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