REVIEWS
Terri Brinegar "Having The Time of My Life", released September 2009

Terri Brinegar comes from Nashville, Tennessee, is still one of the centers of contemporary North American music. Even if Terri acted as much as possible as a smooth jazz artist, there are still also contemporary American mainstream pop elements to the self-driven album (in the relevant portals such as www.cdbaby.com). The music of the eleven tracks is based largely on her penetrating, forward-reaching voice, in addition, the music, the foundation, also awards the careful relationship to styles such as country, rock and pop. The pieces were written entirely by Terri herself, and produced and interpreted by her, which illustrates Terri's talent seriously. Here and there, even a little soul shines through the consistently positive, sun-drenched tracks, such as in the backing vocals on "Little Things". The phrasing and the use of her voice is essentially attributed mainly to the music, then it is the Smooth Jazz at the next, every now and then tearing genre boundaries, and thus gets a spin, which is agreeably independent. Conclusion: "Having The Time Of My Life" was particularly satisfied with the fact that it unites the boundaries between smooth jazz, mainstream pop and country and combines them into an extremely melodic and harmonic dance. Unusual, but also beautiful.

With a style that, at times, could be considered akin to the bluesiness of pop/R&B vocalist Joss Stone, Terri Brinegar has some nice choice cuts here on her latest CD, Having the Time of My Life, with a leaning toward a little of everything from soft rock to blues to R&B. I would be hesitant to classify this project as purely smooth jazz, but the lady can sing, and she does possess a type of rhythmic bluesiness (and there is a difference between my definition of a rhythmic bluesiness and R&B, by the way). Cases in point would be very pleasant tracks such as the title track, “Surrender to Loving You,” “Now My Heart,” “The Sun Shines For You,” and “That’s How I Know.” No newcomer to the music biz, Brinegar has released three CDs of original tunes and one classical CD. There is strong evidence here that this lady could probably rip into some serious smooth jazz material if she chose to do just that. I would have preferred a more defined leaning toward smooth jazz as we know it, but that’s just me. Still, this might be just what many of you seek: Diversity and material that can’t be pigeonholed as just smooth jazz. If so, she definitely deserves a listen. There’s no denying Brinegar’s vocal “chops.“ They’re certainly right for the blues; they work for certain types of R&B; they’re right for soft rock. Also, like I've mentioned, there's no doubt that, taking a clearly smooth jazz route, she can be quite a presence there, as well. However you would wish to classify this, there are quality melodies here that should definitely be taken seriously.

Adult contemporary with influences of soul, smooth jazz and R&B.

You can read on Terri’s bio that she was influenced by Bluegrass, blues, soul and R&B. And since she lives in Nashville, Tennesse you would add country & western to that gamma, but she presents herself as a smooth jazz artist. This is her third album, for which she composed and wrote all the songs, and produced them as well. She’s backed up by a guitarist, a drummer, a percussionist and background singers. Although she considers herself as a smooth jazz artist, personally I think that her songs fit more the label “adult contemporary”. The melodies are interesting and varied, and the lyrics are inspiring. She herself thinks that the melody is most important. So more suitable for the AC/pop format, than for smooth jazz, but not bad at all!

Terri's Band in Nashville, TN

Promotional Video for Jazz - 8 minutes in length

Terri's song "Say You Will"

"If You Believe"

Her original song "Take My Advice"