Search - Billy Childs Ensemble :: Lyric: Jazz-Chamber Music, Vol. 1

"Lyric" Finds Billy Childs in Top Form

MarchHair | Oxnard, CA United States | 11/12/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"After about two decades of releases as a leader, Billy Childs continues to produce cutting edge performances of his compositions and arrangements at the highest level of musicianship. This latest recording is his most solid work as a leader. It is worth a listen for anyone who is interested in serious music with lyric qualities.



For the past several years, Billy has not released any CDs with himself as a leader that primarily feature his own compositions, but "In Carson's Eyes" gets things off to a hypnotically beautiful start by telling a musical story that is full of brilliant intricacies. "Goodbye, Friend" and "Prelude in Bb Major" both demonstrate his uncanny ability to move effortlessly between classical music and jazz while at times seeming to give a nod of acknowledgement to Pat Metheny. "Into the Light" is a Grammy Award winning composition that demonstrates a torrent of virtuosity and unpredictable intensity that would be worthy of an artist whose skill reminds the listener of Chick Corea without sounding like Chick Corea in any way.



The track that radio stations would most likely play is "Scarborough Faire" because people would recognize it, it has many of the same beautiful and hypnotic qualities of "In Carson's Eyes", and it is also the shortest track on the CD. At the end of the CD, Billy shakes things up with "American Landscape". It features exciting playing from all of the musicians and unpredictable development of the composition itself. Hopefully, more tunes will be like it on future recordings.



Some criticism that could be made about "Lyric" as a whole is that there seem to be long portions of the recording that are dark and foreboding, the music does not always `swing' in the usual sense of the term, and there are no spoken lyrics on this CD. At the same time similar criticism could be made about some of the works of Gil Evans who is looked upon as having significant impacts on all of jazz through his orchestral arrangements and his collaborations with Miles Davis. As a whole, "Lyric" draws some elements from a vast range of musical influences that span Billy Childs' career.

"

MUSIC THAT DEFIES CATEGORY BY A TRUE MASTER COMPOSER

James Waugaman | Pittsburgh, PA USA | 12/26/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I first heard of Billy Childs only recently. I was driving and listening to piano jazz on NPR. I nearly wrecked and had to pull over when I heard his arrangement of Scarborough Fair. It was as if I were listening to a combination of many different musicians speaking through one person, but totally original in it's presentation! Since that moment I've listened to his album Lyric hundreds of times. The best description I could give is that it is music without category, without boundaries, but never goes beyond beautiful, even at it's darkest moments. Billy Childs swims in a sea of classical, jazz, progressive rock, folk, completely blended together in a way that you could never place just what type of music you are really listening to.



I can only tell you what Billy Childs music might be similar to. Much of Lyric reminds me of Chick Corea when he (in my opinion) was at his peak back in the 70's with Leprechaun, Mad Hatter, etc. If you like people like Chick Corea, Oregon, or Oregon's Paul McCandless and Ralph Towner, you will love Billy Childs. If you like Mike Oldfield, or Huw Warren's piano arrangements for folk diva June Tabor, you will like Billy Childs. If you like Keith Emerson of ELP you will like Billy Childs. If you love Chris Botti, or the cool jazz side of Sting, you will like Billy Childs. If you love music of Ravel, Debussy, Durufle, or Alain, Mathias, again, you will love Childs. I would even dare to say that Billy Childs is really the very first person that has truly succeeded in unifying all of these styles of music.



There is a track called on this CD called "Quiescence" I am particularly found of because the main theme, and I don't know if this is intentional or not, sounds very similar to the old theme from the Outer Limits TV show from the 60's. It also sounds like Jerry Goldsmith's main theme for the movie "The Illustrated Man" starring Rod Steiger.



I am also in love with the way this recording is engineered. When listening through headphones I feel that I am listening to the music from the drummer's point of view, in a room with the other instrumentalists set up around me.



I could not recommend this album enough! To people who are musicians, to anyone who loves the very highest quality writing there is, and to people who just appreciate true beauty and sensitivity in music!"