★★★★★
Individualism in music is a goal for many musicians who enjoy the challenge of pushing their technical skills into realms of innovation and adventure. The impressively virtuosic Alison Brown has a broad base of experience to draw upon. Her travels have taken her from Connecticut to California to Tennessee...
- rootsmusicreport.com
2013-04-02
★★★★★
Alison Brown The Company You Keep Compass Records 2009 The discovery of a previously unknown species is a watershed event in the biological sciences. The discovery (or recognition) of the same in music is an equal watershed. Banjoist Alison Brown's The Company You Keep marks such a musical event. Music that stubbornly defies categorization is rare indeed and Brown's tenth release (the sixth on her and husband-bassist Garry West's Compass label) is such an event...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2010-08-20
★★★★★
Written and performed in the "stolen moments" between her work as the head of American roots label Compass and as a new mother, banjoist Alison Brown's new album offers 11 sweet and precisely metered slices of contemporary bluegrass, Celtic traditional music, light jazz and pop-country. Throughout, Brown and her excellent supporting band-featuring fiddler Stuart Duncan and mandolinist Sam Bush-showcase breathtaking speed, polish and clarity...
- www.jazztimes.com
2010-02-19
★★★★★
Like the viola, the bodhran, the hurdy gurdyand the accordion, the banjo has been ano ften much maligned instrument, particularly amongst musicians.A s Mason Williams sang; "Them banjo pickers, them poker faced mugs. They never do smile, they just play Scruggs"...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2009-06-12
★★★★★
Banjo player extraordinaire Alison Brown's latest album, Stolen Moments, is a fine recording, full of great songs and displaying some masterfully executed musicianship. It's also the type of album that I hate to write reviews on. The reason being is that I'm a jazz reviewer. Jazz is the only type of music I write critiques on, and Stolen Moments is not, in my opinion, a jazz album. Stolen Moments is a bluegrass/folk album...
- www.jazzreview.com
2009-06-08
★★★★★
Bluegrass banjoist AlisonBrown is not as fusion-obsessed as Bela Fleck ? thank God. A graduateof bluegrass ace Alison Krauss' Union Station band, Brown shows agentle heart as much as a mean three-finger roll on smooth foraysinto classical, jazz, and samba. And with the terrificbanjo-fiddle-mandolin breakdowns, "Shoot the Dog" and "Chicken Road,"she honors her tradition even as she cultivates it on Twilight Motel. B+
- ew.com
2009-06-04
★★★★★
It's a long trip down the career path from a top investment banker to a bluegrass banjo picker. But that's the path this very talented lady chose to take. To be honest, she has kind of traveled that path backwards, and more than once. Even before her teens, Alison Brown was winning contests for her skills on the banjo. One of those landed her a chance to perform on The Grand Ole Opry. She even did some recording before heading off to college -- to Harvard, no less...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
★★★★★
Five-string banjoist Alison Brown deftly incorporates Cajun, Celtic, Caribbean, and Native American music into her progressive bluegrass sound, making for a cleanly played set that's as crisp as white sheets on a springtime clothesline. "View From Above" is a shuffling, lightly jazzed number that plays Brown's banjo off of steel pans, while the title track glides along on a cloud that's more substantive than adult contemporary, but still palatable to that audience with its tasteful soprano sax...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
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