Danny Heines: Every Island (1988)

I’m trying to parse out of Danny’s own bio what could help explain his Every Island. In his own bio, Danny Heines highlights his notable percussive, acoustic guitar fret-tapping technique and an ability to overtone throat sing as keen things he does. On Every Island, what’s notable is how more nuanced his skills are over his technique. Elegant, tasteful, and quite tropical, Every Island is a subtle masterwork of Balearic craft.

Nearly all instrumental, Every Island, it reminds me in parts of the airy jazz pop found in Brazil’s MPB. Other segments hover around the watery minimalism of Joan Bibiloni or Juan Martin’s meeting of electronic padding and acoustics. All this is pretty astounding to hear, when you realize that Danny’s roots aren’t in some exotic Mediterranean environs but the great lakeshore of America’s midwest in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Just two years before Every Island’s release, in 1986, Danny had released his first solo album, Aqua Touch, a forward-thinking slice of New Age Americana that seemed to draw inspiration from Pat Metheny, Oregon, and other acoustic guitar-wielding “floating” noodlers. On that album Paul McCandless, ex-Oregon, and Windham Hill session master fleshed out his minimalist compositions with some truly wonderful watery, modal ambient jazz. As heard on the title track or in “Otter Glide”, gorgeous meanderings of not-quite world music hinted at what would occur two years later.

Two years later, Danny would appear to aim for less gentile, chin-scratching, impressive mood music, perhaps aiming more for the everyday man. Drawing heavily from Latin American and African motifs, Every Island appeared to move a step further, in refining his edges. Much smoother than Aqua Touch, one can picture Every Island slotting in perfectly as part of a soundtrack to your favorite lite jazz station or soundtracking a particularly laid back television weather forecast. In pieces, truth be told, you’re prone to write off this as just smooth jazz ephemera. Listening to the album, I or we, should be struck by it’s myriad ways to stretch “sunny” ideas in manners that draw you in.

The title track, a backbeat laden, Brazilica fabrication mixing wordless vamps with cloud-kissed sun stroking guitar work immediately brings to mind those wonderful airy bits from Djavan’s ‘80s discography, for sure, touchstones like Mr. Bibiloni come back to mind. Mindless noodling this is not. Then “7 Palms” begins to stretch Every Island into the realm of Codona and the forgotten “brighter” ones found in the ECM roster. On this one, the pseudo-environmental percussion by Edson Aparecido da Silva, lends Danny a touch that reminds of Hermeto Pascoal’s attempt to meet nature with rhythm.

Then there are songs that are just wonderfully inviting and more complex than you think. Songs like “Blue Day” are barely there bossanova meanderings that don’t outstay their welcome. “Pinnacle Wheel” has traces of experimental electronics that you forget drive its mammoth track length to a beatific gentle groove, perfect for going back in the pool. If you’re a musician of any sort, you can suss out that this music is far tougher to play than to listen to. To Danny’s strength, the melodies he choses on Every Island coast universally, inhabiting a territory where all sorts of coastlines can find an anchor.

For those still knee deep into all sorts of turquoise-tinted waters, Every Island is another spring offering further replenishment.

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