DEAN JONES: Napper's Delight

Dean Jones

Napper's Delight

© 2007 DeanJones (837101399814)

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Napper's Delight is Dean Jones' solo debut: a quirky lullaby record with drastically changed traditional tunes and masterful originals performed in odd instrument combinations (pedal steel, piano, loops,mbiras, moogs, balaphones and voices).

notes

Napper’s Delight is the first solo CD release from Dean Jones of Dog on Fleas. It is a lullaby record like no other. Mbiras, balafons, pedal steel and autoharp are blended with Moogs, upright bass, piano, guitars, and deep, fuzzy loops. Thoughtful originals and creatively revamped traditional tunes create an old-feeling new world. The lush voices of Elizabeth Mitchell, Debbie Lan, and Amy Poux add refreshing counterpoint to Mr. Jones’ relaxed tenor voice. It’s an album for many moods, and absolutely not meant to be wallpaper.

Mr. Jones has made a career for himself as a boundary-defying
multi-instrumentalist/band leader with Dog on Fleas, the Harmonica Virgins, For Sale by Owner Orchestra, the Car Tune Orchestra, and in other diverse musical settings with George Clinton, Big Sky Ensemble, Sonando, Uncle Buckle, Earmight, and many others.


With Dog on Fleas, Dean Jones has sought to make intelligent, gutsy music for kids, and even more importantly, the other people in kid’s lives. In short: good music for good people. Napper’s Delight continues this tradition as an album of surprises and delights in a mellow mood.

reviews

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  • author: Belltower

    Dino your are brilliant ciao louis

  • Music For Morpheus
    author: Robert B Warren

    As one teeters on the border between sleeping and waking, when time is more elastic and associations are freer, one is likely to see the images, murmur the words, and hear the sort of music that is on Napper’s Delight, the gorgeous new CD from Rosendale’s Dean Jones. Part Lewis Carroll, part solo McCartney, part Vince Guaraldi, Napper’s Delight is whimsically deep, with lyrics both thought-provoking and playfully nonsensical. Napper’s Delight is Jones’s first released solo effort. Stellar contributors include Smithsonian Folkways recording artist Elizabeth Mitchell, who sings the timeless “Grow Little Flower,” Fooch Fischetti on pedal steel, vocalists Amy Poux and Debbie Lan, fiddle player David Levine, and bassist John Parker. In addition to composing music for television, Dean Jones has made a name for himself as the indispensable multi-instrumentalist behind—and at times in front of—such diverse Hudson Valley-based bands as Sonando, Uncle Buckle, Big Sky Ensemble, and the renowned family music group Dog On Fleas. Jones explains his “day gig” is traveling with Arm of the Sea Theater, a “troupe of puppeteers wielding giant puppets and big ideas,” as their one-man band. Of Napper’s Delight, produced, recorded and mixed by the maestro himself at Rosendale’s No Parking Studio, Jones says, “I have all these mellower things that we leave off the Fleas’ CDs, just me by myself.” When asked about his deft mash-up of synthesizers and traditional wooden instruments, modern-day lingo and olde English ballad-speak, Jones admits, “Even if I’m doing a folk song, I’m thinking about Kraftwerk.” The result is that rare song collection that pulls the listener in rather than jumping in their face. Jones’ cool-water phrasing is at the center, and he has expertly cast sounds and voices to complement both his originals and his takes on public domain chestnuts. The latter activity, not unlike modern-day sampling (but without the lawyers) is in the grand tradition of folk “song-joining;” the performer uses extant forms and words and adds or subtracts, making something new while referencing something ancient. Although the Napper’s Delight liner notes humorously cite this as “butchering,” it’s actually the best way to keep a song alive.

  • Napper's Delight
    author: Helen Foster

    Lovely words and catchy tunes for my granddaughter and for me. Playing this music puts the world all right.

  • Dean Jones' Napper's Delight
    author: Tanya Nieri

    Dean's music is so delightful, it makes you want to stay awake!

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