Smooth Jazz Therapy

Warren Hill SJ Cruise - White Brown And Braun

In this look back at the Warren Hill Smooth Jazz Cruise 2005 (WHSJC) we gather together snippets and impressions of what was a truly memorable experience for all concerned.
Ironically, the person billed to head up The All Star Cruise out of Galveston Texas in November 2005, Rick Braun, was the one who perhaps suffered most from the sea sickness that afflicted both artists and fans during the Warren Hill event. Prevented from performing earlier in the week he came back triumphantly on the final evening with an exquisite set laced with standouts. Not least among these were ‘Kisses In The Rain’, the title track from his 2001 CD, where he was joined on stage by Peter White, and ‘Notorious’ from his 1997 ‘Body and Soul’, played as a duet with Kirk Whalum. The collaborations kept on coming with ‘Use Me’, also from ‘Kisses In The Rain’, for which he was joined by Euge Groove, and his big hit ‘Green Tomatoes’, from his CD ‘Esperanto’ that he played, as on the original recording, with Kirk Whalum and Norman Brown. The performance simply re-enforced Braun’s standing as the preeminent smooth jazz trumpeter of today.

Warren Hill SJ Cruise - Warren Hill

Organizing a Smooth Jazz cruise on the one hand, and playing bass as part of the Dave Koz Christmas tour on the other, may not sound like ideal circumstances in which to pull together Warrens Hills tenth CD, and his first since 2002, but that was exactly the situations that Warren Hill and producer Andre Berry found themselves in through December of 2004 and early January 2005.

Warren Hill SJ Cruise - Wayman Tisdale

No man better spans the divide or better makes the connection between ‘Old School’ soul and Smooth Jazz than bass supremo and former NBA star Wayman Tisdale. His latest release ‘Hang Time’ is testimony to that and nowhere was it better demonstrated than the opening night late show of the Warren Hill Smooth Jazz Cruise 2005 (WHSJC). For an audience of a certain age, revved up with the anticipation of seven days wall to wall music and all ready to party, Wayman Tisdale was, as they say, just what the doctor ordered.