WHAT “AIR” LISTENERS ARE SAYING…
- It is sublimely beautiful…it will transport you to another world./David Gizara/ KLCC Eugene Oregon.
- It's wonderfully eclectic. So many influences here, including Weather Report, Paul Winter, and of course Joni. All of the tracks are beautiful!! Excellent recording and mixing, too. "Air" is a great title for the album because that's exactly what it feels like. You're up in the air, surrounded by all of these musical colors. I'd give it three thumbs up....if I had a third thumb./David Leyton
- I love this album because it feels complex through it's simplicity, or maybe it's feeling simple through complexity, and while it's is slightly confusing to my novice brain, it's drawn me in. Surreal and, at times, unmanageable. It feels unconnected, but yet it is very connected in every direction, I just don't know which direction it's headed for!. I'm still going down the rabbit hole with AIR, and I'm going to be down here for at least another month, so maybe when I surface I'll be able to be describe AIR with the eloquence it deserves, but for now I'm filling my lungs and holding my breath, and feeling the good feels./Molly Lynn
- It's a beautiful CD. I listen to it all the time, especially when I'm creating something. Artwork or in the kitchen! It's inspiring and ethereal. Bravo, Dave!/Carol Sveilich
- Elegant piece of ear candy... this is something to put on and SLOW DOWN for a second. Each song allows your mind to wander and create evoking visuals...the world needs more of this kind of music. I especially love track #7 "Pangea"/Travis Guilliams
- The album is nothing like you’ve heard before, even though it has a comforting familiarity. These are morning and evening ragas for the Western soul. Dave’s compositions move me in a way I’ve always felt was rare. This is not an exaggeration./ Steve Christian
- I’m a huge fan of not only the ambient vibe (at times evoking Watercolors-era Metheny), but also the “spontaneous improvisations as frameworks for composition” approach. And of course, the recording and production are exemplary./Jamie Kime
- It's the perfect amount of interesting and relaxing./Jeff Olson
- Atmospheric, lush, evocative, different in a really good way and trippy as hell!/David Beldock
- It's a magnificent work./Gérard Retailleu
- Your song “Promise” feels like a walk in the Parc Rives de Seine on a sunny day in Paris. /Ron Coulombe
- Dave, I just listened to Hillage, with my EarPods, laid back with my eyes closed and this is my impression hearing this for the first time: it’s beautiful. I was a drone, photographing beautiful places on the Earth, canyons, mountains, river streams shores, and then I saw an aerial view of marine life, dolphins and whales just under the surface, looking down from above, and then I saw various animals around the globe in their habitat, and at the very end as the music faded, I saw the shot from space of the blue globe slowly reducing in size as I flew away. This is what your music did to my imagination. That is a beautiful piece . /Scott Smith
- This will be my to-go album for the rest of the year, and most likely beyond. This is what I needed in order to escape from the mundane, I need this aural stimulation. I’m really tired of the predictable. This album is highly well crafted, tasteful and uplifting. What you did is out of this world. Thanks for this gift I’ll be using as a healer and tool to keep me balanced./Allan Phillips
- It sounds wonderful. The sound stage is extremely enveloping. It almost felt like a surround recording./Jack Merkel
- Beautiful, Dave. It is so dreamlike and calming./Ryan Hendrickson
- Just finishing my first listen. Love this multilayered dreamy album with so many different things going on in each moment. Melodic and meditative. Love ‘Robin’ and ‘Joni’. Sort of like a spacey symphony where you are meeting the Universe of sound. Incredible sax, guitar, flute, piano, so many cool instruments. To listen to this album is to give yourself a moment of peace and beauty. Bravo, Dave!/Amy Borenstein
- A series of surprising landscapes, brilliantly played and produced - and, beyond that, I found myself moved by it, particularly Pangea. I can’t hum along yet, but I think I will play it sufficiently to do just that! A wonderful achievement of which I hope you will feel very proud./Anita Gabrielle
- Beautifully produced, and recorded./John Houge
- Everyone sounds amazing! This is definitely one of the best records I have ever been on. Congratulations, Dave./Kevin Hennessy
- A beautiful and creative work of art./Peggy Watson
- I would describe it as a raw elemental listening experience, opening oneself to powerful forces larger than the human dimension. At times I feel myself expanding outwards towards infinity; other times, I sharply contract within whatever instruments are dominant. It is very beautiful. Each listening evokes something new. / Teresa Stumpges
- It sounds terrific, pure pleasure, an ever changing kaleidoscope of colors and shimmering textures./Fred Simon
- This is a real treat for the ears..The mixes are excellent-.it should win some awards somewhere. I'll listen to it often...jazz in reverse; ;what a concept! /Tom Keenlyside
- Absolutely stunning!/Bing Drastrup
- Dreamy, ambient soundscapes provide a unifying ground for melodic compositions from jazz & Eastern traditions. I hear a sensibility informed by Vangelis, Wayne Shorter, and Jaco Pastorius. And maybe even Toots Thielemans. This is good company! /Jim L'Hommedieu
SAN DIEGO TROUBADOUR review by Wayne Riker. Oct 2024
Air is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist and composer Dave Blackburn, offering up nine instrumental tracks of original compositions, playing drums, guitar, piano, and Mellotron. It was engineered and produced by Blackburn at Beat ‘n’ Track Recording in Fallbrook, California.
Blackburn recruited a prominent list of musicians as an addendum to tracks Blackburn had laid down in free time on drums and layered acoustic guitar melodies.
The opening track, “Hillage,” strikes a meditative mood, layered on top of Blackburn’s driving drum rhythm with layers of polytonality entries, particularly from the Mellotron and Erica Erenyl’s cello, followed by “Corridors,” where Rick Schmidt enters with an auspicious Gypsy-tinged pedal steel solo, followed by Tom Keenlyside taking advantage of the free time and modal chordal backdrop, with a sax solo taking us back in time to the innovative sax stylings of John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.”
“Blast,” co-written with Schmidt and bassist Kevin Hennessy, shines the spotlight on Blackburn on drums, soloing and riffing on the skins, channeling legendary drummer Billy Cobham’s innovative drum chops, followed by “Iceland,” a lilting melody supported by weeping cello motifs from Erenyl leading the way.
The free-time tracks “Robin” and “Joni” are highlighted by the silky smooth fretless bass figures from Kevin Hennessy in tandem with Keenlyside on sax, reminding one of the instrumental compositional interchange from the group Weather Report.
Blackburn’s ominous piano melody sets the stage for “Pangea,” floating against a full orchestral meditative backdrop, not to be outdone by “Ullswater,” with an onslaught of various electronic tonal clusters and tintinnabulations ringing randomly against a steady free-time monotonal melodic backdrop.
The album concludes with the track “Promise,” where Blackburn’s mellifluous nylon-string guitar melody duets with musical guest Tripp Sprague’s soulful chromatic harmonica phrases à la Toots Thielemans, offering a more traditional compositional contrast as a finale.
Blackburn and company should be congratulated in their improvisational conversations that never get in each other’s way, complemented by the unique diversity of instruments improvising freely in creating a harmonious compositional gem.