Quantcast

Call for Music Critics and Music Bloggers

Music
cover art

Tia Fuller

Healing Space

(Mack Avenue; US: 20 Feb 2007; UK: Available as import)

Now here’s something to get excited about: a young flutist and saxophonist with a knack for enchanting compositions and a passion to inspire listeners. She’s also an educator, serving as Director of The Jazz Museum in Harlem’s “Harmony Ensemble”. Sound good? Then get an earful of Tia Fuller and the delightful synergy she shares with her band members—Miki Hayama (on piano and keyboards), Miriam Sullivan (on bass), and Kim Thompson (on drums).  Fuller and Thompson have been traveling in Beyonce’s all-female touring band, which is certainly good exposure, but Ms. Fuller and company pull out all the stops for Healing Space.  This effort follows Fuller’s debut, Pillar of Strength, and as her album titles suggest, Fuller seeks to heal and inspire through the beauty and precision of her artistry. Healing Space is full of wonder, a blend of whimsy and melancholy, titillating tempo changes, cascading piano, and head bangin’ action on the drums.  Fuller’s sister, Shamie Fuller-Royston, contributes her own compositions (“Just a Journey” and “Ebonics”) as well as a song co-written with her husband Rudy Royston (“The Olive Leaf & Dove”) wherein Fuller’s flute playing is marvelous. The rest of the tunes are penned by Fuller, which means there are no standards in this set. Healing Space is appropriately and refreshingly personal, with the high points being the triumphant and celebratory “Katrina’s Lullaby” and the exquisite groove of “Blue Room in Mama’s Womb”.  Guests include vocalists Charenee Wade (“A Reason, A Season, A Lifetime”) and Iyanna Wakefield (“I Release Me/Healing Space”) along with trumpeter Sean Jones (“Breakthrough”), percussionist Khalil Kwame Bell, and saxophonist Ron Blake.

Rating:

Quentin Huff is an attorney, writer, visual artist, and professional tennis player who lives and works in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In addition to serving as an adjunct professor at Wake Forest University School of Law, he enjoys practicing entertainment law. When he's not busy suing people or giving other people advice on how to sue people, he writes novels, short stories, poetry, screenplays, diary entries, and essays. Quentin's writing appears, or is forthcoming, in: Casa Poema, Pemmican Press, Switched-On Gutenberg, Defenestration, Poems Niederngasse, and The Ringing Ear, Cave Canem's anthology of contemporary African American poetry rooted in the South. His family owns and operates Huff Art Studio, an art gallery specializing in fine art, printing, and graphic design. Quentin loves Final Fantasy videogames, Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, his mother Earnestine, PopMatters, and all things Prince.


Media
Tia Fuller teaches music at The Jazz Museum in Harlem
Comments
Now on PopMatters
Mommy Fearest: 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' (Blu-ray) (Short Ends and Leader) [Wed, 12:30 pm]
2012 Nelsonville Music Festival (Notes from the Road) [Wed, 12:00 pm]
20 Questions: Hannibal Buress (Sound Affects) [Wed, 11:00 am]
Cannes 2012: 'Reality' + 'In the Fog' (Reviews) [Wed, 8:08 am]
Love, and Other Indelible Stains (Columns) [Wed, 2:00 am]
Sigur Rós: Valtari (Reviews) [Wed, 2:00 am]
Lemonade: Diver (Reviews) [Wed, 2:00 am]
Cory Branan: Mutt (Reviews) [Wed, 2:00 am]
Big Science: Difficulty (Capsule Reviews) [Wed, 2:00 am]
  1. The Top 10 Overplayed Songs You Hate by Artists You Love (Sound Affects)
  2. Tea with 'Sherlock': Investigating the Investigators (Features)
  3. Sunk? This 'Battleship' Stunk! (Short Ends and Leader)
  4. Tenacious D: Rize of the Fenix (Reviews)
  5. 10 Pieces of Cinematic Art That Require Revisiting (Short Ends and Leader)
  6. She's a Rainbow: A Tribute to Donna Summer (Features)
  7. Punk Rock's Pet Sounds: An Interview with Bomb the Music Industry! (Features)
  8. 'Albatross': A Not-So-Weighty Coming-of-Age Meets Mid-Life-Crisis Film (Reviews)
  9. Counterbalance No. 82: U2's 'Achtung Baby' (Sound Affects)
  10. The 10 Greatest Aspects of the 'Star Wars' Franchise (Short Ends and Leader)
  11. Counterbalance No. 83: The Stooges' 'Fun House' (Sound Affects)
  12. We Will Avenge Them Or… Be Avenged?: The Individual in the US Experience (Features)
  13. Early Summer 2012 New Music Playlist (Mixed Media)
  14. The Queen and Her Crayons: An Interview With Donna Summer (Features)
  15. Killer Mike: R.A.P. Music (Reviews)
  16. The Best Canadian Records of the Year? The Fun Agony of Voting for the Polaris Prize Long List (Sound Affects)
  17. Sherlock Holmes, Dirk Gently and the Case of the Eccentric Detective (Columns)
  18. Flash Points: Mommy's Breast, Marriage Equality and Why Chipotle Is King (Features)
  19. Sergio Leone: Something to Do with Death (Columns)
  20. Saint Etienne: Words and Music (Reviews)
  21. In Support of Supports (Moving Pixels)
  22. Flash Points: Chicks, Sluts and Facebook (Features)
  23. In Defense Of... Rock Radio: A Force in Popular Culture (Columns)
  24. Garbage: Not Your Kind of People (Reviews)
  25. The Cult: Choice of Weapon (Reviews)
  26. The Walkmen: Heaven (Reviews)
  27. Willie Nelson: Heroes (Reviews)
  28. 'People's Pornography': The Mundanities of Pornography and Surveillance Culture (Reviews)
  29. Feeling '80s Spirit: Post-Hardcore Punk for the Plastic Generation (Columns)
  30. Various Artists: Occupy This Album (Reviews)
PM Picks
Music Archive
Announcements
Ratings

10 - The Best of the Best

9 - Very Nearly Perfect

8 - Excellent

7 - Damn Good

6 - Good

5 - Average

4 - Unexceptional

3 - Weak

2 - Seriously Flawed

1 - Terrible

© 1999-2012 PopMatters.com. All rights reserved.
PopMatters.com™ and PopMatters™ are trademarks
of PopMatters Media, Inc.

PopMatters is wholly independently owned and operated.
PopMatters is a member of BUZZMEDIA Music, MOG and Guardian Select.