Listening to the musical catalog of new-age pianist Jim
\nBrickman, it almost feels like the more successful he became, the
\nmore room he was given to experiment with his music.
\nBy Heart<\/i> dared to feature some additional accompaniment
\nbesides Brickman’s solo piano – including the introduction of
\nvocals.<\/p>\n
\nPicture This<\/i>, Brickman’s third album, continues in this
\ntrend, daring to move further away from the core of solo piano –
\nyet never forgetting the roots of Brickman’s music. It’s still not
\nquite as absorbing as his debut
\nNo Words<\/i>, but it’s a nice accomplishment.<\/p>\n
Similar to
\nBy Heart<\/i>, Brickman seems to put a more upbeat spin on his
\nmusic, creating the portraits one can see as well as hear, but not
\nquite challenging the listener to probe the depths of their minds.
\nTracks like “Picture This,” “Sound Of Your Voice” and “Dream Come
\nTrue” all do this very well – often bringing in what sometimes
\nsounds like synthesized accompaniment to help bolster the power of
\nthe solo piano. In fact, the addition of strings to some of the
\ntracks accomplishes two things. It strengthens Brickman’s presence
\nwhile providing the songs with a more rounded feel. (The true power
\nof what full orchestration – and by that, I don’t mean in a
\nclassical sense – of Brickman’s compositions can do is heard on the
\nbonus track “Hero’s Dreams” – wow!)<\/p>\n
Daring to use a saxophonist on a new age album is bound to make
\nsome people have a “Kenny G” moment, where they squirm a second
\nbefore running for the exits. But the utilization of Boney James on
\n“Edgewater” reminds me more of the late Grover Washington, Jr. than
\nthe single-lettered last-name schlockmeister, and like the
\nintroduction of strings, helps to bring out the best in Brickman’s
\nwork.<\/p>\n
Vocals are used on but one track, “Valentine,” courtesy of
\nMartina McBride. Despite her background, McBride does not bring
\ncountry into this track; instead, she allows her vocal talents to
\nbe guided by the song itself, and she delivers a rendition which
\npulls at the heartstrings. There’s a reason this track is played a
\nlot on the AOR stations around the country.<\/p>\n
For all of the praise I have for
\nPicture This<\/i>, the disc does have one significant drawback –
\nnamely, it’s not quite as memorable as
\nNo Words<\/i> was. For some reason, Brickman just was not able to
\ncapture the emotional power in the same way he did on his debut
\neffort – a complaint which now is two albums old. Am I saying that
\nPicture This<\/i> is a forgettable album? No. Am I saying it’s
\nbad? No. But like I said with
\nBy Heart<\/i>, I guess I have a high standard of expectations for
\nBrickman, and I know he can easily meet them.
\nPicture This<\/i> falls a little short of the bar in that
\nregard.<\/p>\n
Despite that,
\nPicture This<\/i> is yet another album from Brickman which not
\nonly proves his musical talents and power, but that piano music –
\nand, for that matter, new age music – can be quite enjoyable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6407],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-37175","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-jim-brickman","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37175"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37175"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}