Nnenna Freelon - Listen (1994)

This is a really cool cd. Nenna sings every song from the heart. I really like Nenna's lyrics on her own songs, they are almost freeform in a way, but fit the music like a glove, for instance, "third planet from the sun, earth is alive" starts off the second verse of one of the songs, just as the band picks up a beat, and the overall effect is just cool. Highlights? "Gia's Garden" is so vibrant musically and lyrically, well it just jumps out at you and makes you feel that "earth is alive". This leads straight into "Dad's Delight/Lil B's Poem" which just has a really nice driving beat and rythm to it. This is a feature of the whole album by the way, the bass and drum playing is just great and is a real driving force throughout the cd. The duet "Will you still love me tomorrow" with Jon Lucien is just perfect, with both singers and band just melding together in total harmony, and Nenna and Jon trading scat for scat as the song fades. I like the way when Nenna starts getting exuberant here, Jon is cool with it, and doesnt feel the need to compete, but just stays in his own mode, totally cool. "Ballad for Aisha" has both band and Nenna's voice and lyrics conjuring up a visual and aural feast and transports you to a tropical island somewhere with a beautiful river woman, ok now im getting carried away i'll admit... buy this CD, give it more than one listen and feel the whole become infinitely greater than the sum of it's parts. Had to take away one star, though, for the song "Sol Cycle" which has a filler feel to it, and is smack bang in the middle of the CD!! It just kills the logical momentum of the music to me. The best way I can describe the music on "Listen" is it feels like it's tapping into some secret about the natural order of the planet, an underlying rythm. No I'm not on drugs. Combine that with Nenna's voice and you simply cant go wrong.