Provogue / Artone Label Group [Release date : 18.09.26]

‘Dreams & Songs – A Symphonic Journey’ is a 16 track career retrospective double album that sets the bar high in terms of expectation, and delivers with plenty to spare.

Warren Haynes musical and improvisational chops are a given, while the material at hand represents the very best of his wide ranging career spanning Gov’t Mule, The Allman Brothers, The Grateful Dead, and his own solo career.

It’s framed by the 64 piece Asheville Symphony Orchestra under the guiding hand of conductor Rich Daniels, and honed by the prep work of 6 guest arrangers.

It’s success is due to the way the the orchestral setting bring more possibilities to Haynes’s extant discography, while emphasising melodies, riffs and grooves.

The strings work best on ballads such as ‘Broken Promised Land’, which opens with a cinematic flourish and builds with an aching guitar solo, over extended bv’s and a big orchestral outro.

Then there’s the eerie orchestrated rock ballad ‘Raven Black Night’, featuring Haynes’s delicate guitar intro over a bank of strings.

The orchestra is well suited to the sudden explosive elements of the song, and revels in the noirish film feel, full of horns and bright percussion, topped by John Medeski’s Fender Rhodes keyboard break, leading to an impressive crescendo.

The soulful ‘Makes No Difference’ finds the strings in a more supporting role, as if to illustrate the fact that the album is at its best when offering moments of contrast.

For example, the horn-led opening of ‘Dreams’, paves the way for Greg Osby’s delightful sax solo, matched by Haynes’s own dreamy rich tone tone, before a sax and strings coda.

The thoughtful ‘Banks of the Deep End’ emphasizes some tight interplay over bristling percussion.

On ‘Spots of Time’ the strings add to the grandeur of a piece which all about Haynes’s soaring solo guitar with a feather light touch, flanked by a belated sax and drum section.

The real question to be asked is what difference the orchestra brings to the project beyond self evident power and dynamics?

And as Haynes has himself has said, it’s wholly dependent on the song.

Self evidently, his set list choice pleases both his hard core fans while giving him the ability to improvise in a musically expanded context.

Perhaps the only disappointment is ‘Whipping Post’.

An obvious choice on which to improvise and one which leaves plenty of possibilities for the orchestra, it sounds more studied that inspired.

‘Thorazine Shuffle’ on the other hand, benefits from the extra ballast the orchestra gives an already muscular track, imbuing it with some anticipatory tension, offset by a nicely distorted guitar solo, heavier riffs and a breathless finale .

The slow build of ‘Terrapin Station’ is also well suited to a significant orchestral arrangement, as previously explored on the original Dead version by the Jethro Tull sounding Paul Buckmaster.

The strings closely match the vocal line on a sumptuous track on which Haynes adds a defining guitar solo over thunderous drums, backed by choral bv’s, before a return the string led theme.

The kernel of the album is to be found in the way it moves from the more studious parts to moments of real exhilaration, especially on the jam band of ‘Just Another Rider’, and the meaty orchestrated riffs, bv’s and sitar guitar sound of ‘Shakedown Street’.

The latter generates a positive uplifting vibe with a funky bass and jaunty strings.

Robert Hunter’s enigmatic ‘Black Peter’ highlights the use of contrast again, on a song with a dirgy New Orleans feel, with some great harmonies, a muted trumpet, rich textured slide and bv’s.

But, it’s on the snappy, jazzy cool of ‘Instrumental Illness’ that everything shines brightest.

The use of orchestra, trumpet, walking bass, and organ gives it a 50’s feel, but leaves enough space at 6.50 for Warren to soar into a different realm.

At the time of its release ‘Dreams & Songs – A Symphonic Journey’ is already 7 years old, but it still sounds, fresh, exciting and above all, fun. ****

Review Pete Feenstra

Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

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