I recently picked up a couple of older recordings and have been enjoying them throughout the weekend. One of those is "Stolen Moments" by Alison Brown, which was released in 2005. The thing that fascinated me the most about this album is the variety of music styles, not just from track to track, but also within each track. The style seems to be dictated by whomever is playing the lead at any given moment. Fiddler Stuart Duncan provides a strong trad & bluegrass sound, whereas pianist John R. Burr provides a very distinct jazz sound. When in the lead, Alison Brown's banjo weaves back and forth between bluegrass and jazz.
This album features 4 vocal tracks, each done by different vocalists. Three of those tracks, featuring the Indigo Girls on "Homeward Bound", Beth Nielsen Chapman on "Angel" (the old Jimi Hendrix song), and Mary Chapin Carpenter on "Prayer Wheel", are pleasant but just okay. Had Emmylou Harris done the vocals on "Angel", I think it would have been a very different story. The stellar track here is "One Morning in May" featuring the vocals and fiddling of Andrea Zonn. Incidently, it's the only track that doesn't feature the banjo.
Of the instrumental tracks, there are 3 really stand-out tracks: the heavily bluegrass flavored "The Magnificent Seven", which Brown co-wrote with guitarist John Doyle; "Carrowkeel", which features the beautifully haunting whistle of Seamus Egan; and the fabulously-named "(I'm Naked and I'm) Going to Glasgow", which begins with the jig "The Grey Goose" before spinning into 3 reels. This last tune gives the musicians the most room to stretch their legs and really showcase their talents.
Though I generally prefer more traditional bluegrass over the somewhat ridiculously named "jazzgrass", on the whole, I enjoyed "Stolen Moments." To hear more of Alison's music, check out her MySpace page.
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