Branford Marsalis is an excellent saxophone player, well versed in his roots but with his own sound going on. I know that gets said about everybody, but Branford's ability to be more flexible with form and time than most others is a big selling point. I like his playing, but I usually don't like his albums, which are usually poorly arranged and only half filled with anything worth repeated listening. The Dark Keys is an exception. 7 out of 8 tracks are highly listenable, and the energy is strong throughout.
Tain and Branford have great chemistry, and Tain has a nice reputation of his own as always pushing with an almost Elvin-like intensity, but here, the trio lunges headfirst into… Read more
Dwele is about as neo soul as you could possibly get. There are rhodes keyboards everywhere, only occasionally replaced by guitars. There are lush chord progressions and the resolutions to the inevitable major chords are embellished as much as possible. Dwele is one of those guys who half sings and half talks throughout the cd, although his hooks can still be memorable and his words can sometimes be interesting.
Sometimes interesting. That is kind of what describes most of this cd. There are some songs that have interesting concepts (Twuneanunda, Subject, Kick out of You) and some nice songs of predictible subject matter (Truth, Day at a Time, Hold On), but some other songs (Sho Ya… Read more
I never thought of this cd as a dance pop kind of thing even though it has a lot of very danceable moments...I suppose I perfer to see it as a work of art. In case you haven't heard, there are a lot of samples on this cd...it probably took a decade for all these guys (there's like 8 of them) to collect all these records and stuff. They've managed to make something meaningful that stands on its own merits, even if you're too young to recognize any of the samples. The earlier tracks and the later tracks stand out as individual songs (the first four tracks are all amazing, and two hearts is especially nice and a very fresh sound, frontier psychiatrist is very cool for turntablist fans),… Read more
