Jackson Garrett is a creative composer who has the ability to borrow from different music styles to create a unique and interesting sound. Garrett has a strong command of the jazz language "High Time", but his music also contains influences of rock, "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie", "You Dirty Dog" soul, "The fire in your eyes", funk "Don't Tell Me What to Do", ballads "It's You I'm Holding Now" and smooth jazz "Happy Cat Rap". For his new release, Let Sleeping Dogs Lie. Garrett reunites a group of extraordinary musicians including the amazing singers Kristi King and Laura Hagen.

~Wilbert Sostre, Jazz Inside Magazine

 

It’s been a while since I heard an album where the composer just let other musicians play their music. Usually the composer plays or sings on the album. But Jackson Garrett seemed content to let the music speak for itself with the musicians he picked to play on the album. And it works extremely well. This is one of the best jazz albums I’ve heard in the last couple of years.

~Bruce VonStiers, BVS Reviews

 

The genius behind them is composer and producer Christopher Gore. The music has strong brass accents and will make you reminisce. It is a happy toe-tapper dedicated to Walter Earl Brown, the producer who contributed much to this and many other fine recordings.

~D. Oscar Groomes, O's Place Jazz Magazine

 

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie is an extremely sassy album, full of in your face tunes and sparkling performances from all the musicians involved. Christopher Gore writes a mean tune and knows how to get the best from both the musicians and the music - he even sings on one or two tracks. Great fun and highly recommended.

~John M. Peters, The Borderland - Full Review…Click Here

 

When I first saw the cover of Jackson Garrett‘s Let Sleeping Dogs Lie, it immediately reminded me of Ice-T‘s 2006 album Gangsta Rap, with wife Coco on the cover. But this is not a hip-hop album.  Let Sleeping Dogs Lie is some decent jazz with a nice mid to late 1970′s flair, which will be appreciated by those who like Grover Washington Jr., Steely Dan, or Michael Franks. Jackson Garrett is not a man but the name of a band fronted by Christopher Gore, and they play some fairly good jazz in a laid back manner, not quite smooth but with the potential to get there. I prefer the songs with full vocals, I do love the horn sections on here, where it comes to revisiting that old Tonight Show feel or those old Air Force band records. For me, the musicianship is great.

~John Book, This is Books Music

 

This high-energy band got high “EQ” (energy quotient) marks from me back in issue # 106… they go up a point, to 4.97 on this great 14-song CD.  As you listen to the superb sax from guest Gary Bias (E,W & F) on “Don’t Tell Me What To Do“… you hear that?  Jazz with some zerious ATTITUDE!  This is definitely “in your face”, & if you dig it as much as I do, it’ll be IN YOUR EARS all day & all night long.  There’s a kinda’ “Blues Brothers” vibe on the title cut, “Owed To The Dan“… slinky horns & all that!  My favorite track, though, was the (very) jazzy “You Dirty Dog“… some great guitar work on this one.  I give this krew a MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

~Rotcod Zzaj, Improvijazzation Nation

 

Nu big band by a crew that has no one named Jackson Garrett in the band.  A loose affiliation of guys that have had a hand in the making of many of your faves, from across generations, there’s no dust on this bunch as they genre bend jazz and groove into some wild stuff that has a lot on the ball.  An adventurous set that is challenging without being difficult, this is pretty much where jazz was going before the biz-jazz mutation co-opted these kind of sounds.

~Chris Spector, Midwest Record Recap Volume 34/Number 361