Pieces of a Dream – Acquainted with the Night
Acquainted With
The Night
Pieces of a Dream
by Ray Redmond
It’s hard to imagine that Pieces of a Dream is celebrating their 25th anniversary in the music business, but they are. Teen prodigies James Lloyd and Curtis Harmon have matured into ‘thirty-something’ jazz veterans. After all those years of playing together, they have grown better rather than growing stale, like some of the hangers-on from that era.
Featuring the likes of Gerald Albright, Ronny Jordan, Maysa Leak and Kenny Blake “Acquainted With The Night” brings on the fire and smoke that you expect from a group that helped pioneer smooth jazz. And let me give a nod to Heads Up Records for signing yet another fine group to their label and letting them create the kind of music they are known for, rather than trying to ‘mold’ them into some vision…
The remake of “Theme from Mahogany” is great, but “Upside Down” is a little flat in my opinion. That’s the only down side to the CD. The rest is a festival of smooth rhythms, funky licks and soaring melodies. Smooth Jazz has come to have a somewhat commercial connotation to it recently, and then along comes Pieces of a Dream to remind us why Smooth Jazz got so popular in the first place. All you Smooth Jazz clones Take Note...this is the straight juice, not watered down and pumped out in an afternoon between tours. I expect it will get a lot of airplay.
