Rick Braun - “Beat Street”
Tracks:
- Groovis
- Poppa Dee
- Club Harlem
- I’ll Be There for You
- Philadelphia
- Cadillac Slim
- Xoum Ladya Fhada
- Natalie
- Ian’s Blues
- Walk the Walk
- Marty’s Party
In my mid 20’s I got hooked on jazz. (I still am, by the way.) And like most jazz fans during that time, smooth jazz CD’s could be found in our CD players. Rick Braun was probably introduced to me via WJZZ (no longer on the air) in Detroit. What helped was my new found love of trumpet in jazz.
Braun is an Allentown, PA native. Though I actually only found this out recently. He fell into jazz somewhat by accident. His first contribution to the music world was writing a song for REO Speedwagon. But eventually his instrumental demos were sent to jazz label Bluemoom. Over the years Braun has become the label’s “in-house” producer as well as one of it’s best selling artists.
“Beat Street” was the first of Braun’s albums that I had bought. I have three others, and they lack compared to this one. The biggest reason is that the others lean more heavily on being smooth jazz. “Beat Street”, though having a modern smooth jazz sound, is very strange and weird at times. And if you have been reading my other posts on my favorite albums, you know that I like things weird.
Another thing I really like is muted trumpet. And there is quite a bit of it on the first half of the album. “Poppa Dee” is the first, with some hip organ and at times a very ethnic flavor to the rhythms. “Club Harlem” is another, with a nice and slow funkiness to it. It also features Peter White on acoustic guitar. “Philadelphia” also is included in this, with some funky guitar. The second half of the album treads more smooth jazz avenues. Though they still keep things funky.
“Cadillac Slim” has to be listed as my favorite track. It starts out very un-jazz like, and even almost along the lines of strange pop sounding electronica. It still stays within the boundaries as it goes along, but it is a nice example of how even smooth jazz can be a bit experimental.
Another great feature of this album is acoustic bass is VERY WELL recorded. You can hear it very clearly when used.
August 2nd, 2006 at 7:26 pm
My exposure to this album was when I worked at Borders. It was in the rotation for in store play. When I was at the info desk with Pete, for some reason we always put it on.
And then we both grew very sick of it and ceremoniously threw the disc away. AHHH the good ole days