Talk:Mistaken Identity (Vernon Reid album)

The Boston Globe review
Transcription using Google News Advanced News Archive Search. The Boston Globe (Saunders, Michael. September 6, 1996) review of Mistaken Indentity (1996):

"Freedom was a long time coming for Vernon Reid. For 10 years, he was the leader of Living Colour, a Grammy Award-winning hard-rock act with the sense to blend street smarts with onstage snarling. It was Reid's band, but he was always happy to let Living Colour take on a life of its own. Now, after disbanding Living Colour, the reserved Reid has discovered that his latest project, Vernon Reid and Masque, is much like himself, more concerned about getting in your head than in your face. It's a band trying to get, as Reid put it, "more bites per bark."

His new album, "Mistaken Identity," is an amalgam of impressions and influences, distinct musical routes corralled for one coherent project. The disc has few close kin; perhaps its closest relative is the Branford Marsalis "Buckshot LeFonque" project. There have been many discs that mix jazz and hip-hop, rock and hip-hop, jazz and rock. Few attempt to merge all three. "Conceptually there's a lot of stuff going on," Reid said from New York, before the tour that brings him into Avalon on Sunday. "It has to do with the quality of soul. You can mix everything together and do anything with it, but the key thing is what does it mean emotionally, on a soul level?"

If anything, the Masque project shows the visible benefits of Reid's feeling of freedom. "Mistaken Identity" was recorded with an eclectic group of top-flight session players: Don Byron is on clarinet and bass clarinet, DJ Logic handles turntable manipulations, Curtis Watts is on drums, Hank Schroy plays fretted and fretless basses, and Brookline native Leon Gruenbaum plays a bizarre instrument of his own invention, the Samchillian Tip Tip Tip CheeePeeeee. There's a definite contribution from Reid's other co-producer, jazz producer Teo Macero, who has worked with Miles Davis, Charles Mingus and Thelonius Monk and others over his 40-year career. The album's guests are as eclectic as the band. Rapper Chubb Rock makes a rare appearance, and actor Laurence Fishburne narrates "Important Safety Instructions! (Mutation 2)" with an accent caught somewhere between the East and West Indies. Virtual-reality visionary Jaron Lanier plays two exotic instruments, the kaba gaida and siljeflote, on two tracks.

"Mistaken Identity" is an enhanced CD, with the data portion containing a brief game that Reid calls an "interesting sort of take on the music business. Business and music. Two things in opposition and collision." Reid said he sees his current project as part of a continuum, a return to making music for reasons other than MTV visibility. "I'm not a nostalgic person, but I think that certain ideas of what music meant have been discarded by many people, like the way in which music can be more than just a way to pass the time, or how it can really encapsulate a feeling. An emotional situation can be condensed, or we can reflect a world, we can refract a world, we can create a world with music.""

- Michael Saunders

Dan56 (talk) 23:39, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Boston Herald review
Transcription using Google News Advanced News Archive Search. Boston Herald (48. September 8, 1996) review of Mistaken Indentity (1996):

"VERNON REID. Mistaken Identity (550 Music/Epic). Three stars. Instrumental rock music can be an uphill climb for radio-conditioned listeners. Luckily, ex-Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid installs the sonic equivalent of an escalator on his solo debut "Mistaken Identity." Reid, along with a cross-section assemblage of musicians ranging from jazzbos Don Byron and Teo Macero to hip-hopper Prince Paul, manages to combine funk, metal, rap, jazz fusion and sampled snippets into coherent songs that sound more like organic layering then art-rock cut-and-paste jobs."

Dan56 (talk) 23:39, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

The Washington Post review
Transcription using Google News Advanced News Archive Search. The Independent (Joyce, Mike. June 30, 1996) review of Mistaken Indentity (1996):

"Vernon Reid: "Mistaken Identity" (Sony) The ex-Living Colour guitarist continues to make bold music, even if he's mellowed somewhat. Working with veteran jazz producer Teo Macero and hip-hop ace Prince Paul, Reid has lowered the volume on "Identity" enough to let his several attractive melodies shine through. At the same time, he deploys an impressive cast of musicians in diverse and imaginative ways, so that Don Byron's clarinet and DJ Logic's turntables are integral to the colorful and sometimes compelling mix."

- Mike Joyce

Dan56 (talk) 23:39, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Allmusic's rating of this album should be omited, because it's obiously a mistake, they give 4 stars and a half and the reviewer says mostly bad things about the album. This happens often in Allmusic. Erlandinho (talk) 13:21, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (February 2018)
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