Jason Riley: Funky Folk for Funsters (review from Mommy Perks.com)
I’m not giving this CD to my kids. Sorry. Read below to find out why.
I recently received an email asking if I’d like to review a CD: Funky Folk for Funsters. I was taken back for a moment because the email came from the CD artist. Not from a PR firm.
Old school.
How nice.
I’m so used to getting canned emails from PR folks: “You’ll love this! Your readers will be so glad you reviewed this!” Etc, etc. Let me note – I run PR for my own clients so I can’t complain too much about PR people. My point is simply that I found it lovely to hear from the artist himself. A nice little step back in time when people used to run their own marketing and reach out on their own behalf – graciously and humbly. Jason’s note was so polite and I really appreciated that. I am not reviewing all that many products any longer (no time) but I’ve decided to be open to people like Jason who reach out with kind words.
As some of you know from my Reliable Blogger site, I like kindness
Today, I sat down to write my review of Jason’s CD. I could not find his email in my in-box and was growing frustrated by my lack of attention to detail. How could I lose it? A moment later, an email popped into my box, from Jason!
I’m assuming this is Jason. I found the photo on his site.
Here’s what he wrote:
Hi Shara: Just a quick note to follow up and make sure that you did in fact receive our Funky Folk cd package. Sincere thanks for allowing us to send it. We hope you’ll enjoy or share it with folks you think might with no strings attached. Let me know if you it didn’t come through. Thank you, Shara! All the best from ours to yours.
- Sincerely, Jason
I have to tell you – I was really pleased to see that this fellow can write, spell correctly, and doesn’t email me in Text. As an English/Elementary Ed major I adore emails that come to me in complete sentences rather than: “Hi. Review? Link here: ______. Yes? No? THX.”
A huge thanks to Jason for emailing me in complete sentences
On with the review!
When I receive a new CD in the mail, for review, I always hand over the cover to my kids so they can examine it. “We have a new CD – let’s pop it in and listen!” When Funky Folk arrived I was in the car, alone. I popped the CD in and decided then and there that I own this one. Not my children.
According to Jason’s website, this CD was created for kids. That said, I don’t think my children have the life experience yet to fully appreciate how awesome this music is. So they don’t get it. Sorry.
My father plays the guitar, the piano and he also sings. I grew up listening to music at home, church, in the car and more. I don’t consider myself a music expert but I can certainly spot raw talent when I hear it.
Someone wrote the following ad copy for the Funky Folk CD:
Funky Folk is a musical theme park with arrangements that explore Jazz, Blues, New Age, Bluegrass, Latin and Funk. The music feels as if it was created in a free and friendly, living room hootenanny from a groove-oriented cast of Funky Fun-sters. Each tune on the album was constructed from single-take improvisations on a predetermined form, style and main theme. The resulting concoctions retain the playful, grooving spirit of an organic process of joyful creation. Multi-tracked guitars, percussion, banjo, mandolin, hand clapping, body thumping, lap steel, guitar synth and a little harmonica create a unique texture where acoustic folk meets old-school beats. While each track has it’s own personal character the album draws strength from the flow of stylized diversity, resulting in a truly enjoyable listening experience for the whole family.
I was going to say that.
Since someone else already wrote it, though, I just decided to post it here for you to read, giving them credit.
Truly, every track is unique and special and the music is soothing and wonderful. Like… that feeling you get when the rain hits your roof and your mind is flooded with memories from days gone by. You feel sad, happy and hopeful all at the same time.
That’s how this CD makes me feel. Somehow, it takes me through an array of emotions and by the end I feel completely content, wishing I was snuggling in bed with Rick {my better half}, the rain falling all around us.
Stop by Jason’s site to buy the CD. It’s $8 with $2 shipping. A steal.
Jason Riley – Funky Folk CD Mini Review
OWTK KID’S MUSIC REVIEWS — BY JEFF BOGLE
JASON RILEY “FUNKY FOLK”
Like a gritty metropolis that bellies up to a pristine shoreline, “Funky Folk” too is about disparate ideas working together in harmony. Jason Riley, an accomplished guitarist in a variety of disciplines, offers as his debut work for children a chill, futuristic calypso-jazz-bluegrass-instrumental folk album that defies convention.
Classic melodies (“Froggy Went A Courtin’”, “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”) receive hip, instrumental treatment and the results are surprising thrilling. Riley impresses with nimble musicianship that explores the familiarity of these standards while simultaneously revealing in the newness of his arrangements. When was the last time you were excited about hearing “Camptown Races”? Oh de doo-da day, Riley’s race takes place under the warm Caribbean sun, giving you the chance to enjoy again. I’m particularly fond of the Jimi Hendrix-at-naptime electric guitar in the final third of “Frere Jaques”, a French nursery favorite that receives a sort of Steve Reich process music embrace here.
“Funky Folk” is an audacious concept: layered, often complex instrumentals made accessible on the back of easily recognizable songs. This is a sweet little album meant to score many a Saturday afternoon toddler play date, the kind you don’t want dominated by frenzy.
…Riley sounds like a young Pat Metheny.” – A. Weston
“…(Riley’s) musical artistry was quite simply the most beautiful and most expressive I have ever heard on an electric guitar. I believe if serious classical music composers could hear the range and beauty of the instrument in the hands of an artist such as him, it would open up a whole new world that is yet unexplored by them.”- Rawdon Hall Guitars
“…(the Music) has a defined character, a classical influence as well as rock. It’s one of those things that is hard to categorize, that’s for sure.” – J. Anderson
“Riley sounds like who?” – P. Metheny
Plans Go Awry
Robert Burns, the noted 18th century Scottish poet, once famously wrote that, “The best laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft agley.” The well-known translation reads more like, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Though Burns was meditating darkly on the relative burden of a conscious mind, I’d like to get obvious and talk a bit about how some of my own recent plans went a bit agley.
Turi and I had hatched a plan to go see Jason Riley, my former guitar instructor, play a European tour date with The Nova Project, a classical fusion group in which he is involved. I’d seen the Nova Project once before, and watched with some amazement as Jason, another guitarist named Anthony Glise and their bass player rocked out a classical tune, adding an old John Donne poem for metal-physical gravitas. Anthony, a St. Joseph, Missouri-born maestro who spends half his time living in Europe, was gleeful afterwards. “This,” he said, “is going to fire up the classical community.”
To me, firing up the classical community seemed roughly equivalent to dialing back Matlock viewings at the old folks’ home to twice a day, but, hey, I’m all for sticking it to the Man.
Still, I really enjoyed watching great guitar players do what they do. So, determined to catch up with my old musical mentor on this side of the world, Turi and I set off for Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany, where The Nova Project was scheduled to rock the KKF Hall.
Upon arrival, the town impressed us primarily with its dual use of umlauts. Being a random European town, Schwäbisch Gmünd was sufficiently endowed with standard cobblestone streets, 13th century churches and frowning old ladies, but something was missing. After a bit, Turi and I realized that that something was people. I hadn’t been expecting Woodstock crowds, but I figured the place would be a little jazzed. After all, it was a summer Friday night, live music was on tap and we were in the land of a thousand beers. Surely, someone could summon the funk.
I wasn’t too worried, though. As a veteran of club events, I had seen first-hand the beauty of a few hundred people crammed into a smoky club for the express purpose of rocking. Club shows are truly a wondrous thing, much different than their amphitheatre brethren. In arena concerts, I suppose it is rather awe-inspiring to trudge among the loaded masses, glassy-eyed and shirtless, on the long and arduous journey from a distant parking lot to an even more distant stadium seat. In many ways, the arena concert is like a great aviary migration, with legions upon teeming legions flocking to the warm climes of power-chord land.
Club crowds, on the other hand, often possess a distinct long-lost-jungle-tribe feel. Instead of strange facial tattoos and bamboo tools, however, they have a propensity toward horn-rimmed glasses, furtive glances and ironic t-shirts. And facial tattoos, sometimes, too, I guess. But those are pretty much solely reserved for underground metal shows.
At any rate, Turi and I searched the empty streets of Schwäbisch Gmünd for Nova Project posters. We didn’t find any. We asked four people for directions to the KKF hall. Two hadn’t heard of it, and the two that had pointed us to an arthouse movie theater. Picking our way past a dumpster and down an alley, we found the hall and, sure enough, it was showing “Super Size Me.”
Marching up to the spiky-haired ticket taker, Turi asked, “Is there a concert here tonight?”
“No,” he frowned, “Only movie.”
Baffled, I chimed in, “Are there ever concerts here?”
“No,” he sighed, “Only movie.”
Thus, we were at a bit of an impasse. I had come three hours to see a really talented group of guitarists from thousands of miles away play weird classical music, and was bummed that they were nowhere to be found. By now, it was nearly 9 p.m. and I had sampled two German beers in hopes of sparking some festive fire, so escape was impossible. Our plans, well laid though they were, had gone awry.
And then, I thought of Robert Burns, who, aside from dispensing bits of universal wisdom, had also once written a poem about falling face-down drunk in a field of thistles. When his plan – remaining upright – had gone awry, he had seized life by the marrow and squeezed a hilarious poem out of it. Now, presented with my own field of thistles, would I seize the day?
Sort of, as it turned out. A jazz quartet from Switzerland was playing in one of the beautiful old 12th century churches, so Turi and I ducked in to check them out. And, when I was able to stay awake, they sounded amazing. As for the mice, I’m not sure whether they enjoyed the music or not.
- Nate Cairney
