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Jason Collett — Song And Dance Man (February 5, 2016)

Jason Collett — Song And Dance Man (February 5, 2016)

   Jason Collett — Song And Dance Man (February 5, 2016)  Jason Collett — Song And Dance Man (February 5, 2016)•≠•   “What I’ve really been trying to figure out is ways to make music and records with a modicum of dignity, and still have a healthy life with my family.” Jason CollettLocation: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Album release: February 5, 2016
Record Label: Arts&Crafts
Duration:     36:16
Tracks:
01 Provincial Blues     3:07  
02 Song and Dance Man     3:09  
03 Forever Young Is Getting Old     2:34  
04 Long Day’s Shadow     2:51  
05 Little Sparrow     2:19  
06 If She Don’t Love Me Now     2:42  
07 Singing American     3:17  
08 Love You Babe     3:01  
09 Black Oak Savanna     2:22  
10 Where Does Your Love Go?     2:51  
11 Nobody’s Fool     3:14  
12 It Don’t Matter Anymore     2:08  
13 Staring at the Sun     2:41Editorial Reviews
•≠•   “Song And Dance Man”, the title track from Jason Collett’s sixth full–length album, finds the iconic singer–songwriter back at centre stage, with three–minutes–and–change and a story to sing. Featuring the bright production touch of Bahamas’ Afie Jurvanen, “Song And Dance Man” covers the trials and triumphs of the modern musician with poignant poetry:
If you can tweet something brilliant, you got a marketing plan
•≠•   Song And Dance Man’s thirteen songs bear the wit and melody of classic Jason Collett: contemplative reflections on getting older, backed with an affinity for freewheeling 70s dance music. The album’s conspiring themes of love & loneliness, sun & shadows, are buoyed by its soaring sound. Each song rises into an easy, spacious groove, lead by Jason’s languid melodies and Afie’s sun–drunk bass.
•≠•   “There’s a cool economy to Afie’s approach that lets the record breathe and allows it to say more with less, something I worked hard at hardly working at in writing the songs,” says Collett. “Keeping a light touch, keeping it short.”
•≠•   Having spent the years since 2012’s Reckon finding himself further engaged in the growing success of his Basement Revue concert series — a cross–pollinating musical & literary mash–up of Canada’s premiere contemporary artists — the Toronto indie–troubadour describes this record as a liberating process distilled in a stretch of deep domestic reverie.
•≠•   “I like writing songs and for the first time in my life I felt no rush to hustle them or myself out the door,” says Collett. “I let some dust settle, some weeds grow, putter about at home…”
•≠•   The result is a dynamic addition to a strong body of work. Song And Dance Man may be Jason Collett’s finest effort yet — back in the spotlight, more comfortable than ever in the guise of entertainer:
•≠•   You got to do what you can when you’re a Song And Dance Man.
•≠•   Song And Dance Man was recorded in spring 2015 with long–time collaborators drummer/engineer Don Kerr (at his Rooster Studio), Christine Bougie on guitar & lap steel, Zeus’ Neil Quinn on backing vocals, and Afie holding it down on the bass, sometimes two.                                                           © Credit: Isis Essery
ABOUT
•≠•   “Song And Dance Man”, the title track from Jason Collett’s sixth full length album, finds the iconic singer–songwriter back at centre stage, with three–minutes–and–change and a story to sing. Featuring the bright production touch of Bahamas’ Afie Jurvanen, “Song And Dance 
Man” covers the trials and triumphs of the modern musician with poignant poetry: 
If you can tweet something brilliant, you got a marketing plan
•≠•   Song And Dance Man’s thirteen songs bear the wit and melody of classic Jason Collett:
contemplative reflections on getting older, backed with an affinity for freewheeling 70s 
dance music. The album’s conspiring themes of love & loneliness, sun & shadows, are 
buoyed by its soaring sound. Each song rises into an easy, spacious groove, lead by Jason’s languid melodies and Afie’s sun–drunk bass.
•≠•   “There’s a cool economy to Afie’s approach that lets the record breathe and allows it to say 
more with less, something I worked hard at hardly working at in writing strolling the songs,” says Collett. “Keeping a light touch, keeping it short.”
Having spent the years since 2012’s Reckon finding himself further engaged in the growing success of his Basement Revue concert series — a cross–pollinating musical & literary mashup
of Canada’s premiere contemporary artists — the Toronto indie–troubadour describes 
this record as a liberating process distilled in long stretch of domestic reverie.
•≠•   “I like writing songs and for the first time in my life I felt no rush to hustle them or myself 
out the door,” says Collett. “I let some dust settle, some weeds grow, puttered about at 
home…”
•≠•   The result is a dynamic addition to a strong body of work. Song And Dance Man may be Jason Collett’s finest effort yet — back in the spotlight, more comfortable than ever in the 
guise of entertainer:
You got to do what you can when you’re a Song And Dance Man.
•≠•   Song And Dance Man was recorded in spring 2015 with long-time collaborators 
drummer/engineer Don Kerr (at his Rooster Studio), Christine Bougie on guitar & lap steel, 
Zeus’ Neil Quinn on backing vocals, and Afie holding it down on the bass, sometimes two.
Review
BY ROB CALDWELL, 4 February 2016;  Score: 7
•≠•   Toronto resident and sometime Broken Social Scene member Jason Collett is definitely a song man. With a couple of the songs on his seventh album, Song and Dance Man, he’s a dance man as well. These songs, the first two on the album, are steeped in mellow funk and bass groove, with “Provincial Blues” adding in some soul–style backing vocals as well. The other, the title song, kicks the energy up a notch with an insanely catchy, but simple sounding, jangly guitar riff. From thereon in, though, the funk is gradually left behind as the songs ease into a dependable mid–tempo, acoustic–based pattern, hook–filled and with plenty of sing–a–long choruses (or whistle–a–long as in the case of “Forever Young Is Getting Old”). In short, a versatile assemblage of roots and country–influenced singer/songwriter pop, with splashes of ‘70s AM soul.
•≠•   There’s no filler on Song and Dance Man; each song bears repeated plays and throws enough curveballs and snappy lines to keep things interesting. On that title song, for example, a sardonic commentary on technology and popularity in today’s music industry, Collett sings “If you can tweet something brilliant / You got a marketing plan” and “Now that the future has swallowed the past / It’s one step forward and two steps back.”
•≠•   Collett isn’t shy about crediting his influences either, as he proclaims “we all want to sing in American” in the aptly titled “Singing American”. This extends to the country textures and pedal steel guitar in “Long Day’s Shadow”, and the bouncy roots–rock of “Love You Babe”, which wouldn’t be out place on a Traveling Wilburys’ album. He extends things a bit further south (of the border) in the Mexican–flavored “If She Don’t Love Me Now”.
•≠•   If there is any weakness with the album, it comes down to the singing. Collett’s laconic vocals, drawing out his vowels and consonants in a suave and smooth–tongued manner, coming across like a more self–conscious Josh Rouse, can seem affected in places. This is most pronounced in those two lead–off, funkier tracks. Granted, it fits more in that style, but whether he manages to pull it off is debatable.
•≠•   Song and Dance Man is in many ways a taking stock album, a mature album, from “Forever Young Is Getting Old”, to the nostalgia of “Black Oak Savanna”, and to the calm acceptance of “Staring at the Sun”. Though he’s been writing strong material throughout his career, this batch of songs, from an older and more seasoned Jason Collett, show that he’s only getting better.
•≠•   http://www.popmatters.com/
Website: http://jason-collett.musicnewshq.com/
Label: http://www.arts-crafts.ca/_____________________________________________________________

Jason Collett — Song And Dance Man (February 5, 2016)

ALBUM COVERS XI.