Carr's Departure

Bruce Von Stiers

Kenny Carr has gotten quite the reputation as a jazz guitarist. He has recorded several well received albums. I've reviewed a few of those, including his last album, Idle Talk.

Carr has recently put forth his latest effort, an album titled Departure. The album has ten songs and a play time of just over an hour. Kenny produced the album and composed all of the songs. It was released by Zoozazz Music.

Carr grew up in SoCal and in his teens studied under trumpeter Ray Brown. It was while attending Berklee College of Music that Carr was able to audition to tour with Ray Charles. That audition resulted in a touring schedule with Charles that lasted ten years. Carr also played lead guitar on two of Charles' albums.

Carr's last album was Idle Talk. He had three great musicians play on the album with him. Those same musicians also came together to play on this album. They are Donny McCaslin, Kenny Wollesen and Hans Glaswisching. McCaslin is on saxophone. He had been previously nominated for a Grammy. Wollesen does the drums and percussion. He has played on many albums including ones for Tom Waits and Natalie Merchant. Glaswisching plays bass. He also has played on several top artists' albums, including James Moody. I mentioned earlier that Carr was a guitar player. He plays all the guitar on the album. He also does the synthesizer work.

Intervals is the first song on the album. It has, like the title suggests, intervals of slightly different bits and pieces of classical and modern jazz. There is some great saxophone music in the song and a terrific guitar solo.

Time Change has some light moments and a few that are a bit moody. Again, the saxophone plays a prominent role in the song.

Tell Me I Can't is a cool groove with tough guitar, bass and drums, along with some nice sax.

Warmth is a soft and gentle piece with a lot of bass and guitar along with subtle drums.

D&P is a slick groove with a slight Latin flair.

Evolutions has a tough guitar sound. It made me think of the background music for an opening sequence for a slick crime drama.

The title track, Departure, is another soft and gentle piece. It has nice bass and sax backed by gentle guitar and drums.

Waiting steps things back up a bit with a melodic groove.

Bear Call has some great sax.

The closer for the album is Parallels. It has a nice guitar intro that segues into decent sax, drums and bass.

Kenny Carr shows a great amount of talent in the compositions on this album. Whereas his guitar playing in featured in each song, most of them have other instruments at the forefront. And that makes for a terrific album.

Departure is available through iTunes, amazon and other music outlets.

To learn more about the album and Kenny Carr, visit www.kennycarrguitar.com ,

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© 2019 Bruce E Von Stiers