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Songs From Those Days
Kent Heckaman
Kent Heckaman Productions, 2008
http://www.kentheckaman.com
REVIEW BY: Michael Ehret
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 06/06/2008
Kent Heckaman’s second release, Songs From Those Days, takes him several steps in a new direction from his debut, 2002’s Transitions. That first disc was an instrumental piece, heavy on the Wyndham Hill influences.
For Songs…, Heckaman has added vocalists for the majority of the pieces, including an appearance by Karin Bergquist of the Cincinnati, Ohio-based alt-folk band Over The Rhine. Bergquist’s vocals, unfortunately, like the discs’ overall sound, sound like they’re coming out of a well.
But that is one of the few faults I find with Heckaman’s disc and, since it is an indie production and self-produced, it’s hard to hold that against him too much. Fans of Tori Amos and Norah Jones will find much to like here, as Heckaman displays a lot of the same ambient melancholy, as those artists.
Heckaman, who still lives in the northern Indiana town he was raised in, studied classical composition on piano for ten years and then jazz composition for five – and both show. For instance, in the instrumental “Stauffer Park,” I can hear echoes of Herbie Hancock (especially from Hancock’s latest, River: The Joni Letters, Grammy’s Album of the Year for 2007) wrapped in a classical structure.
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