Brenda Nicole Moorer – Brand New Heart (2017)
Like many people with an arts background, Brenda Nicole Moorer has multiple talents. She’s a photographer whose specialties include portraiture as well as wedding photos. Moorer is an actress with credits that include Being Mary Jane and Greenleaf, the film Jacob’s Ladder, and many theater and musical theater roles.
Being Mary Jane has a reputation for making musical choices that strike a balance between classic and contemporary songs; mainstream and indie artists. Moorer’s latest project, Brand New Heart, has a few cuts that could enhance a scene or add emotional depth to an episode of a show about a cable news anchor woman trying to balance her work and professional life.
“Wake,” for example, is a tune suited for those early morning afterglow scenes. Soul Cycle front man Jesse Fischer produced the duet and his sparse keyboard arrangement gives the track an intimate and relaxing feel as Moorer and Chris Turner take us into the thoughts of two lovers lost in the reverie when the first thing they see as they awaken is each other. The fun “Traditional Medicinal” moves from a percussive, bouncy funk to gospel styled harmonizing to a swinging sax led jazz jam a track where Moorer rhapsodizes about her man’s healing power. “Got an ache in my side/Heart is breaking/I need your good love to heal.”
Moorer moves to the mid-tempo funk of “Burgundy & Alcohol,” a track where she assures a friend that she understands and empathizes with her pain because she has literally and figuratively stood in her shoes. The folksy “Moments & Minutes,” opens with Moorer cooing over an acoustic guitar that is joined by a banjo, giving the track a country feel that gradually melds into a jazz fusion swing featuring some deft keyboard work.
Moorer displays her skills as a storyteller on “Inside Out,” a track where she describes being emotionally tossed to and fro by a less than committed lover. “You sit and watch me fight this/Smoking cigarettes with whiskey/I keep on trying to kick it/Someday I’m going to break free.”
Although some old-timers may beg to differ, we currently reside in a new golden age of television, and music plays a role in the medium’s revival. In a way TV has assumed the role of introducing viewers to emerging acts that previously belonged to radio. Terrestrial radio has largely abandoned that role, so the quickest route to a larger audience may be for singers to get good music into a director’s hands. Moorer is on the set and with Brand New Heart, she has presented top notch music. The tunes just have to be heard by the right set of ears. Recommended.
By Howard Dukes