CHAZZ DIXON:BUTTERFLIESReviewed by Heikki SuosaloRating: 8/ 10
So In Love / SOS (A COVID19 Mess) / I’m Gonna Love You Forever / Make It With You / My Weakness / Just Hold Me Closer / It’s Time Admit It / Good Morning / Butterflies / Daydreaming Is Chazz Dixon a modern envoy of romanticism? At least he’s very prolific in writing and recording perfect music for romantic moments. His previous album from only seven months back, Anachronism (https://www.soulexpress.net/deep2_2020.htm#chazzdixon), was filled with tender and amorous sounds and his new CD titled Butterflies, which is scheduled for release on September 25th, goes still deeper into affairs of the heart. In a way this new CD came as a bit of a surprise, because in the liners of Anachronism Chazz wrote that this album is perhaps his last. Chazz: “Absolutely, I just wanted to produce. Ricardo K, a former Da’ Soul Recordings artist, is releasing a song I produced the end of September titled One More Minute followed by the CD, Fragile. I really lost interest in releasing anything on me, until a very dear friend, photographer Kathy Corday, schooled me on the importance of creative fuel, entertainment, and my contribution to art.” Chazz further explains that since COVID stopped all promotion activities the best thing for an artist and a songwriter to do is “to create. I went back into the studio and began writing, recording, even filming my experiences for what has become my upcoming CD, Butterflies.” Again Chazz produced the set, wrote eight new songs and played all the instruments. “Starting with the basics, of course, drums, bass, some guitar, but I mixed/merged a variety of keyboards from a Steinway piano to a Prophet 5. I have to thank my son, Barope “DJ_Payday” Dixon, who talked me into building my own studio with the demand that I let people hear what’s really going on in my head with each song.” The two outside songs are remakes of Leroy Hutson’s 1972 recording of So in Love and Bread’s 1970 gold single, Make It with You, which both suit Chazz’s soft style perfectly. Make It with You and SOS (A COVID19 Mess), a longing solitude ballad, have already been available as singles and a softly bouncing, poetic song titled Daydreaming is the third one. “The song Tell Me (How to Freeze This Moment) is being released as a separate single the same day as the CD but is not on the CD.” Besides those singles, personal favourites on this set of mostly dreamy and tender downtempo material include the haunting and smoothly flowing I’m Gonna Love You Forever, a hypnotic and romantic wakeup call called Good Morning and the title track, Butterflies. “That’s what a real love song is all about, butterflies.” Still, when listening to the ethereal Just Hold Me Closer, in instrumentation the first thing that came to my mind was Strawberry Fields Forever. “This collection is actually from my heart. I am foolishly romantic, guarded an apprehensive about sharing my feelings, in other words – shy! This didn’t start as album or CD but rather me saying through songs what I wouldn’t say in person beginning with So in Love, then SOS. After Make It with You was released I began to realize that this was becoming more than just a few singles but rather another CD. So off I went penning my feelings only to realize I was just Daydreaming. And after all, a daydream is nothing more than what a fool believes.” (Interview conducted on September 6, 2020). © Heikki Suosalo |
