{"id":40941,"date":"2008-06-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/songs-from-those-days\/"},"modified":"2008-06-06T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-06T00:00:00","slug":"songs-from-those-days","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/songs-from-those-days\/","title":{"rendered":"Songs From Those Days"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Kent Heckaman\u2019s second release, <i>Songs From Those Days<\/i>, takes him several steps in a new direction from his debut, 2002\u2019s <i>Transitions<\/i>. That first disc was an instrumental piece, heavy on the Wyndham Hill influences. <o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">For <i>Songs\u2026<\/i>, 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\u2019s vocals, unfortunately, like the discs\u2019 overall sound, sound like they\u2019re coming out of a well.<o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">But that is one of the few faults I find with Heckaman\u2019s disc and, since it is an indie production and self-produced, it\u2019s 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.<o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Heckaman, who still lives in the northern <st1:state><st1:place>Indiana<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> town he was raised in, studied classical composition on piano for ten years and then jazz composition for five \u2013 and both show. For instance, in the instrumental \u201c<st1:place><st1:placename>Stauffer<\/st1:placename>  <st1:placetype>Park<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place>,\u201d I can hear echoes of Herbie Hancock (especially from Hancock\u2019s latest, <i>River: The Joni Letters<\/i>, Grammy\u2019s Album of the Year for 2007) wrapped in a classical structure.<o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Heckaman says his influences are as diverse as Elton John, Pink Floyd, Pat Metheny, and Brian Eno \u2013 and his cover of John\u2019s \u201cI\u2019ve Seen That Movie Too\u201d from <st1:street><st1:address><i>Goodbye Yellow   Brick Road<\/i><\/st1:address><\/st1:street> is certainly a faithful interpretation. For that song and a couple others, Kate Myers, <st1:place><st1:city>Valparaiso<\/st1:city>, <st1:state>Ind.<\/st1:state><\/st1:place>, serves as narrator. Myers never apes John, and, in fact, she brings some unexpected grace to the tale of lovers who are \u201cmaking nice\u201d even while knowing the relationship is over. <o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Another fine song on the disc is a cover of Three Dog Night\u2019s \u201cPieces Of April,\u201d which brings out the buried beauty of the song in a version sans the schmaltz of the original. Neal Alger\u2019s guitar work nicely compliments the vocals by Heather Horton while Heckaman provides the piano bed.\u00a0 <o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The disc is available from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kentheckaman.com\" target=\"_blank\">his Web site<\/a>  or visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/kentheckaman\" target=\"_blank\">his MySpace page<\/a>  for samples.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":29370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8209],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-40941","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-kent-heckaman","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40941","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\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40941"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}