Press
	December 5, 2005 Critics' Choice New CD's LINDSEY HORNER-DON'T COUNT ON GLORY Since the early 1990's, Lindsey Horner has brought his sturdy bass playing to an array of adventurous jazz settings... Mr. Horner has an untroubled sensibility as a composer; his songs offer simple rewards and make few harsh demands. This is good fodder for his excellent cast of interpreters, including Marty Ehrlich, the trumpeter Brian Lynch and the guitarist Pete McCann. Assorted guests, like Bobby Previte and the keyboardist Uri Caine, slip in and out of rotation, bringing fresh energies with them... Straightforward lyricism is hardly foreign to Mr. Horner, who has also worked extensively with the Irish folksinger Susan McKeown. He plays tin whistle on the title track, and Celtic low whistle on a sweetly balladic "Shadow Girl." To his credit, it sounds courtly rather than cloying, and not the slightest bit out of place. NATE CHINEN — THE NEW YORK TIMES "...This CD is terrific, great compositions, great playing, great teamwork...coaxes influences from Tijuana and English madrigals into a timeless celebration that doesn't need geography." -Greg Masters, — AllAboutJazz, NY "Horner showcases an organically eclectic way with writing and conceptualizing his music all the while dodging easy categorization. -Josef Woodard — Jazz Times "Horner's riveting writing draws on several elements, including a respect for melody and arrangements that let the musicians open up and create interesting textures, developing into landscapes that often profile unusual structures." Jerry D'Souza — http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=21833 "For my money, it’s one of the top five or ten modern jazz releases of 2005. With this outing, Horner and his acoustic-electric large ensemble combine modernism with mainstream jazz values. And Horner shines as a gifted composer/arranger to coincide with his firm bottom-end and limberly enacted walking bass lines... Part of the overall delight resides within the radiance and breadth of execution generated by the soloists, coupled with themes shaded by world-beat percussion grooves and peppery horn charts... Take asymmetrical doses of guts, focus and momentum, and there lies some of the recipes for artistic success during this buoyant and thoroughly hip engagement." Glenn Astarita — jazz e-news JEWELS AND BINOCULARS/MICHAEL MOORE, LINDSEY HORNER, MICHAEL VATCHER PLAY MUSIC OF BOB DYLAN "Jewels and Binoculars is a surprising, effective tribute to the music of Bob Dylan, imbued with a lyrical sensibility but spiked with an array of hard-edged corners...A trio finding power in the interpretation of simple forms with thoroughly unsaccharine sweetness. The openness here never comes the easy way-three consummate stylists serving up sincerity with rough-hewn,hard fought rigor. Without qualification, this is a classic of a new century." — Charles Walker, Sudden Thoughts "Jewels and Binoculars confronts us with a scarcely recognized paradigm-that jazz music has folk roots...As a whole, there is a blend of courage and melancholy in the tunes, which owes largely to the careful sequencing of the record. Bob Dylan should be flattered, as his music here is imaginitively interpreted with gorgeous instrumentation, while treated with obliging respect." — Alan Jones, One Final Note. UK "Bob Dylan's focus is on words, messages, and simple melodies that speak to the soul...Stripped of their pop rhythyms and vocals, the songs stand on their own as attractive melodies with hooks and nooks. It doesn't hurt to have the kind of extraordinary talent comprising this trio..The results are never less than fascinating." — Steven Leowy, Cadence magazine (USA) "...All melodies well suited for Moore's touching Jimmy Guiffre inspired clarinet. Switching to alto saxophone for "Dear Landlord" and "With God on Our Side", among others, he gives a glimpse of the rude sputtery energy he's brought to Mengelberg's ICP Orchestra and the late Clusone 3, thereby honoring Dylan the surrealist and Dylan the reckless crooner. Horner takes the simple harmonies as they are, but can row back and forth over a scale and make it sound like a solo, thanks to creative phrasing and precise timing, articulation and intonation. Vatcher loves the zillion timbres an extended trap set can produce and can be a weirdly hiccupy timekeeper, testing the parameters of a beat, taking perfectly good phrases and stretching them dangerously out of shape. Like Bob Dylan." — Kevin Whitehead, Chicago Reader "Jewels and Binoculars stands as a testimonial to the timelessness of Dylan's music, to the versatility of jazz, and to the foresight and the talent of these three musicians who brought them together." — Brendan Garland, Metro Santa Cruz (California) "Jewels and Binoculars' style is never anything but gloriously sweet and soothing, the listening experience was all good" — Stuart Derdeyn,Canada West (Vancouver, B.C.)