Month: September 2016

Broadjam Artist: Chet Nichols
Song: Who Stole The Ivy (#1 Folk & Folk-Americana)

Reviewer: Delta Burnett Reed

Positive Comments: Love your story and your harmonies are very nice. you have a very nice verbrado in your voice. Guitar is well played…nice hook and I like your humming gives your song a nice touch…well done.

Constructive Comments: Some might say at over 5 minutes is a little long, but there is nothing like a good story. and I did not find it over long well done.

Broadjam Artist: Sweet Harriet
Song: Riding Hood and The Wolf

Reviewer: Delta Burnett Reed

Positive Comments: Nice simple vocal with guitar…well done, easy on the ears…the guitar is well played not over done with your vocal.

Constructive Comments: Well done…

Broadjam Artist: Kate Carpenter
Song: The Farewell Song

Reviewer: Delta Burnett Reed

Positive Comments: This is just so pleasing, nice harmony….you give such a great sound…I think I know you…is this maybe a little older song?

Constructive Comments: Had to turn up the volume on this so I figured maybe a little older a song. I hope this is Mrs. Kate if not forgive me…but well done.

Broadjam Artist: Jeff Ashbaker
Song: What Are Friends For

Reviewer: Delta Burnett Reed

Positive Comments: Vocal is very pleasing to the ear…background vocals adds a nice touch to the song…I like your story line…

Constructive Comments: Nice job, you could also put this in country

Broadjam Artist: Josh Walker
Song: The Old Rugged Cross

Reviewer: Brenda Craven

Positive Comments: Oh my…an old hymn with a jazz flare. LOVE IT!!! You have done a tremendous song with this. I am a keyboard/piano/bass player, and this is just right down my alley. What a wonderful piece of music. I take my hat off to you. You have taken this song and made it your own…added your own flare and taste to it to make it unique. Well done my friend.

Constructive Comments: No critique!!!! Bravo.

Broadjam Artist: Prejippie Music Group
Song: I Just Want To Play For You

Reviewer: Brenda Craven

Positive Comments: This piece has a nice little funk feeling to it. The instrumentation is really good…great choice of instrumentation. I would place this more into the R&B side than the contemporary jazz side, but it easily be a crossover. Nice bass line…I am a keyboard/bass player, so I love the bass solo in this. Nicely done!

Constructive Comments: I’m listening to this with my less than spectacular headphones on. They’re not my stereo headphones, so this song sounds pretty good with what I’m using. I’ll have to listen again with my stereo phones on, but from what I’m hearing, I really have no critique except for the ending. It kind of fades out abruptly. Maybe a longer fade out or a different ending would set this piece off. Other than that, great job.

Broadjam Artist: Sandra Ada
Song: Simple Dreams

Reviewer: Jeff Roberts

Positive Comments: Very very solid and lush mood piece that would be great for action film use. It has an Asian vibe and a feeling of dawn breaking on a scene where all hell is about to break loose.

Constructive Comments: Nothing it’s excellent!

Broadjam Artist: Tristyn Leach
Song: Swing On By My Place -w/ Frank. Radice

Reviewer: Kate Carpenter

Positive Comments: Song opens with a great jazzy piano & vocal solo, sounds like kind of old-timey like the performing artist is rockin’ out on a bar piano…some great licks there. Then the track changes to a jazzy instrumental with some top musicians weighing in on guitar, keys, drums, horns and bass…no vocals. Ending returns to a vintage-sounding recording of the original artist singing “swing on by my place.” This seems like 2 separate songs put into one track.

Constructive Comments: I don’t understand why TWO SEPARATE SONGS are on this one track. I can’t really see any connection between the two. I can’t even tell that they are the same artist. Then at the ending “Swing on by my place” returns. I didn’t once hear that hook in the middle jazzy section of the song. Was it supposed to be a tribute to the one who wrote the original “Swing on by my place” song? Sorry, I just didn’t get what you were trying to accomplish here.

Broadjam Artist: Jeff Ashbaker
Song: In Between

Reviewer: Kate Carpenter

Positive Comments: At first I thought this was going to be a song about Lewis and Clark trying to find the passageway, but it turned out to be a love-relationship song. Pleasant male vocal with nice female vocal harmony. Somehow the “usually trite” love/above rhyme really worked in this song without sounding over-used. It’s a nice love song and I wish you the best with it!

Constructive Comments: That was quite a leap from blue skies and bright eyes to the eating the cookie from the middle. But I guess you can say…it was an original leap. I’d shorten the guitar solo a bit…if you feel like shortening the song would help or make it more commercially acceptable….no big deal on that one. It was a nice guitar solo. So…was the cookie an Oreo?

Broadjam Artist: Steve Dafoe – Songwriter
Song: Holiday Time

Reviewer: Kate Carpenter

Positive Comments: Here’s a sweet, engaging, “real home-made” Christmas song, straight from the heart. The guitar intro and playing throughout is so lovely…it’s just makes you feel like you’re sitting with the performer in front of the fireplace by the Christmas tree with his brothers Matt and John soaking up all the family love. Lots of specific word pictures draw the listener into the song and make it ever so real. The vocal is right on the snowflake (money didn’t seem like the right word to use here, ha ha). What a down home great voice to listen to. The Jingle Bells picking at the end was the icing on the Christmas cookie…well done!

Constructive Comments: As much as I liked this song, here are my suggestions for improvement. Correct me if I’m wrong, but on verse 2 did you divert from your rhyme scheme? I was looking for something rhyming with mistletoe. Love at all times…is the way to go? Maybe that’s not the best choice, but just something I noticed. I also didn’t understand the part about “see friends create so dear”. The best-crafted verse, in my opinion, was verse 3. guy and pie. Great rhymes and an original divergence from the standard cookies everyone else leaves. Pie is better by a long shot! One other lyrical problem is the two times I heard the word “the” emphasized. “Waiting for the THE one great day”. It’s just musically awkward to put the accent and emphasis on the word THE like you’re doing. A change in the phrasing or melody might solve that problem. I would also recommend shortening the chorus at the end. There are too many “home for the holidays.” By that time, we have gotten the point. Say it and wrap it up with that great picking of Jingle Bells. At any rate, I loved the song. Just trying to be constructive!