Tag Archives: mel minter

Pictures at an Exhibition

A Review:
 Kevin Harris Project, Museum, vol. 1

MuseumVol1CoverOne of the great pleasures of reviewing
music is learning how much you don’t know. Over the years, a large number of unsolicited CDs have come in over the transom,
introducing me to artists I had never heard of or knew only vaguely by name. Every so
often, popping one of these discs into the player for a quick sample, I hear something that demands closer inspection.

I remember, for example, getting Omar Sosa’s Mulatos for potential review from an editor. The disc sat on the shelf for weeks. I didn’t know much about Sosa, and I thought the artwork on the cover was goofy. Finally, one day, grudgingly, out of obligatory curiosity, I put the disc on to have a quick listen—and got my mind blown. Now, Sosa is an icon around this house, and I’ve even grown to love the Mulatos artwork.

Pianist/composer Kevin Harris may be headed for the same fate with the Kevin Harris Project’s release of Museum, vol.1. Continue reading →

hONEyhoUSe Heats Up the Sweet Spot

I swung by vocalist Hillary Smith’s house to pick up the new hONEyhoUSe CD, which was
waiting for me in an envelope stashed behind the fountain by her front door. With
characteristic generosity, Smith had left two copies, and that only made me doubly nervous.

I had been so over-the-top smitten by the trio’s first album, Sun, that I was afraid to cut the plastic wrap on this one. What if their first album had just been lightning captured in a bottle, and not a sun at all? How would I tell these musical friends that I didn’t dig it?

train_edit_sepia_wed

Photo courtesy of hONEyhoUSe.

I slid the CD into the slot on the dashboard, turned up the volume, and held my breath. It wasn’t too far into the first track, “Kansas,” that the goose bumps began to pop on my
forearms. Near the end of the song, where the hONEyhoUSe gospel choir takes us to church, the hairs on the back of my neck erected in sympathetic vibration, and I was in full voice accompaniment. (What an inspired choice, made in the studio on the fly by
producer John Wall and Smith, to multitrack the trio into a glorious choir.)

I herewith publically apologize to Mandy Buchanan, Yvonne Perea, Hillary Smith, and their djembe-playing percussionist Savannah Thomas for ever having had a doubt. Medicine Lodge burns hotter and sweeter than Sun.  Continue reading →