Album Features
UPC:	044006409627
Artist:	Michael Brecker
Format:	CD
Release Year:	2002
Record Label:	Verve
Genre:	Jazz General

Track Listing
1. American Dreams
2. Travels
3. No Lonely Nights
4. It Might Be You
5. Prism
6. America the Beautiful
7. Nightfall
8. Ron's Place
9. Bittersweet
10. Young and Foolish
11. Bird Food
12. Sotto Voce
13. Love Like Ours

Details
Playing Time:	74 min.
Contributing Artists:	Michael Brecker, Brian Blade, Brad Mehldau
Producer:	Charlie Haden, Ruth Cameron
Distributor:	Universal Distribution
Recording Type:	Studio
Recording Mode:	Stereo
SPAR Code:	n/a

Album Notes
Personnel includes: Charlie Haden (bass); Michael Brecker (tenor saxophone); Brad Mehldau (piano); Brian Blade (drums).Recorded at Signet Studios, Los Angeles, California on May 14-17, 2002. Includes liner notes by Charlie Haden.Personnel: Michael Brecker (tenor saxophone); Gayle Levant (harp); John Wittenberg, Joe Ketendjian, Shari Zippert, Maurice Dicterow, Kristin Fife, Mari Tsumura, Murray Adler, Pip Clarke-Ling, Charles Everett, Joel Derouin, Patricia Johnson , Bruce Dukov, Peter Kent, Armen Garabedian, Darius Campo, Susan Chatman, Berj Garabedian (violin); Raymond Tischer, Carol Mukagawa, James Ross , Marilyn Baker, Harry Shirinian, Denyse Buffum (viola); Brad Mehldau (piano); Chuck Berghofer, Norman Ludwin, Putter Smith, Edward Meares (double bass); Brian Blade (drums).Audio Mixer: Jay Newland.Liner Note Author: Charlie Haden.Recording information: Signet Soundelux, Los Angeles, CA (05/14/2002-05/17/2002).Arrangers: Jeremy Lubbock; Alan Broadbent; Vince Mendoza; Charlie Haden.This overly long quartet-plus-strings session is Charlie Haden's paean to an ideal America, made during a time that was ripe for such reflections. The band, with Haden on bass, Michael Brecker on tenor, Brad Mehldau on piano, and Brian Blade on drums, is unassailably strong. But listeners could have lived without the ear-candy sheen provided by the 34-piece orchestra, arranged primarily by Alan Broadbent, with additional contributions from Jeremy Lubbock and Vince Mendoza. (Broadbent and Mendoza also penned charts for Jane Monheit's In the Sun, released two weeks earlier.) Aside from outright banalities like "America the Beautiful" and "It Might Be You" (yes, the Stephen Bishop lite-radio hit), there are some saving graces, like Keith Jarrett's "Prism" and "No Lonely Nights," Mehldau's "Ron's Place," and Haden's two originals, "American Dreams" and "Nightfall." But Pat Metheny's "Travels" goes soggy without its Midwestern guitar twang, and Ornette Coleman's "Bird Food," one of only three tracks not to feature the orchestra, is so wildly out of place that its impact is somehow diminished -- notwithstanding a vivid pedal-point interlude about six minutes in. ~ David R. Adler