{"id":1511,"date":"2016-02-18T23:21:56","date_gmt":"2016-02-19T04:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomleighton.info\/site\/?page_id=1511"},"modified":"2018-02-05T16:35:29","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T21:35:29","slug":"leighton-life-gets-a-great-review-in-the-whole-note-mag","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.tomleighton.info\/site\/recordings\/leighton-life\/leighton-life-gets-a-great-review-in-the-whole-note-mag\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Whole Note Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Leighton Life” reviewed in The WholeNote Vol 21 No 5
\nWholeNote Magazine February 2016<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2026..\u00a0 I warned publisher David Perlman at The WholeNote\u2019s early January gathering that there might not be an Editor\u2019s Corner this month. So much\u00a0has happened since then that it is hard to imagine that just one week\u00a0has passed. The first event was a kitchen party at my friends Michael and Mary\u2019s\u00a0house, an annual affair to welcome in the New Year with a wealth\u00a0of pickin\u2019 and grinnin\u2019. In addition to the usual plethora of guitars\u00a0in various tunings, fiddles, mandolins and octave mandolins, there
\nwere hand drums, harmonicas, a keyboard, an accordion and more\u00a0than a dozen voices lifted joyously in song. It was a magical evening,\u00a0as so often these gatherings can be. I took particular delight in the\u00a0opportunity to play with the accordionist, who was adding myriad\u00a0colours and rhythms to the mix. As I was leaving \u2013 earlier than was\u00a0my won’t due to the tail end, or so I thought, of a lingering chest cold\u00a0\u2013 I mentioned my pleasure to Mary who told me to hang on and went\u00a0to grab me a copy of the accordionist\u2019s new CD, \u201chot off the press.\u201d It\u00a0seems she was the graphic designer of the package (altdesign.ca) and\u00a0had a box of discs on hand, and so I left the party knowing my journey\u00a0had begun.
\nLeighton Life is a wonderfully eclectic recording that showcases the writing skills
\nand musical dexterity (piano, synths, accordion, organ, jaw harp, whistle, trombone, percussion, bouzouki and bodhr\u00e1n) of Tom\u00a0 Leighton (tomleighton.ca). Not content to rest on his own laurels (and the mixing skills of producer Paul Mills), Leighton surrounds\u00a0himself with a marvellous array of musical friends too plentiful to\u00a0name, to create horn sections, string arrangements, cello solos and\u00a0string band accompaniments as required. The opening track\u00a0All Thumbs is a playful Penguin Caf\u00e9 Orchestra-style minimalist moto\u00a0perpetuo with the ostinato provided by the ticking of a mechanical\u00a0clock and a triangle (at least that\u2019s my guess).\u00a0A Summer Jig features the accordion in the lead role of a warm, lush instrumentation.\u00a0A Letter Found is a haunting ballad with violin and cello in unison and\u00a0harmony on the memorable melody over piano and accordion accompaniment. Hank Dances\u00a0is a rhythmically propulsive swing tune\u00a0with horns, extrapolated from music Leighton wrote for a production of\u00a0Hank Williams, The Show He Never Gave by Maynard Collins.
\nThe 12 tracks included here \u2013 all instrumental \u2013 run the gamut from\u00a0old timey, to R&B, Scottish traditional to The Hurdy-Gurdy which Leighton says was \u201cwritten for the hurdy-gurdy … by a non-player.\u00a0Alas, it doesn\u2019t play well on a hurdy-gurdy but conjures my image of\u00a0the player.\u201d Quite convincingly I might add. The album comes with a\u00a0\u201cWarning! Listening to instrumental music activates emotional, motor\u00a0and creative areas of the brain!\u201d It also includes the notice that all
\ncompositions are available as sheet music from the composer, so as
\nspontaneous as much of the music feels, it is obviously conceived in
\nits entirety by this wonderful musician. I look forward to having the
\nopportunity to play with him again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Musicians<\/a> – Track List<\/a> – Track Samples<\/a> – Video Sampler<\/a> –\u00a0Dedications<\/a> – Cover Art<\/a> – Sheet Music<\/a> – Music Notes<\/a> – WholeNote Review<\/a> – Purchase CD<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Leighton Life” reviewed in The WholeNote Vol 21 No 5 WholeNote Magazine February 2016 \u2026..\u00a0 I warned publisher David Perlman at The WholeNote\u2019s early January gathering that there might not be an Editor\u2019s Corner this month. So much\u00a0has happened since then that it is hard to imagine that just one week\u00a0has passed. The first event … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":1381,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-1511","page","type-page","status-publish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomleighton.info\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomleighton.info\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomleighton.info\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomleighton.info\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomleighton.info\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1511"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomleighton.info\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1890,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomleighton.info\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1511\/revisions\/1890"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomleighton.info\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomleighton.info\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}