Keep Your Heart Right Explained

Keep Your Heart Right
Type:Album
Artist:Roswell Rudd Quartet
Border:yes
Released:June 24, 2008
Recorded:2008
Genre:Jazz
Label:Sunnyside
SSC 1188
Chronology:Roswell Rudd
Prev Title:El Espíritu Jíbaro
Prev Year:2007
Next Title:El Encuentro
Next Year:2008

Keep Your Heart Right is an album by trombonist Roswell Rudd which was recorded and released on the Sunnyside label in 2008.[1]

Critical reception

The Allmusic review by Michael G. Nastos stated "Rudd's idea on this CD is to mix up some old favorites, Gilbert & Sullivan-inspired stage-type songs, and his trademark modern jazz – all as a vehicle for the introduction of the excellent songbird Sunny Kim. She is as impressive as any vocalist you might hear in contemporary music ... this is Roswell Rudd's best effort of the 2000s, and marks an auspicious coming out for the extremely talented and likable Sunny Kim".

In The Guardian John Fordham wrote "On this uneven but heartwarmingly honest and rather oddball set, Rudd lets his roots show. Working with a drumless band featuring South Korean vocalist Sunny Kim, he delivers a gospel- and blues-based album".[2]

On All About Jazz Fred Bouchard noted "To witness, even overhear, transcendent conversations such as these may well contribute to cures for what ails us, individually and collectively, short-term or bone-deep".[3]

In JazzTimes Steve Greenlee said "his new record, Keep Your Heart Right, is a difficult one to understand ... Maybe the problem is that I wasn't prepared for Rudd to go head-to-head with this particular singer. But expectation informs experience, and when I pop in a Roswell Rudd disc, I expect to be surprised, entertained and awakened. None of that happened this time".[4]

Track listing

All compositions by Roswell Rudd except where noted

  1. "Keep Your Heart Right" – 6:37
  2. "Loved by Love" (based on a poem by Gabriel García Márquez) – 5:22
  3. "I Look in the Mirror" (lyrics by Verna Gillis) – 5:00
  4. "The Light Is with Me" – 7:12
  5. "I'm Going Sane (One Day at a Time)" (arranged by Roswell Rudd, lyrics by Verna Gillis) – 5:39
  6. "Bamako" (lyrics by Verna Gillis) – 5:56
  7. "All Nite Soul" – 6:46
  8. "Suh Blah Blah Buh Sibi" – 7:21
  9. "You Blew It" – 4:30
  10. "Whatever Turns You On Baby" – 6:40

Personnel

Notes and References

  1. https://roswellrudd.bandcamp.com/album/keep-your-heart-right Bandcamp: album details
  2. Fordham, J. The Guardian Review, February 13, 2009. Retrieved February 5, 2020
  3. Bouchard, F. All About Jazz Review. Retrieved February 4, 2020
  4. Greenlee, S. JazzTimes Review. Retrieved February 5, 2010