One might surmise that in the jazz, rock, and RB worlds the Fender Rhodes would beat the Wurlitzer in an electric piano popularity contest, although songs like Cannonball Adderley's Mercy, Mercy, Mercy (with composer Joe Zawinul at the keyboard), Ray Charles' What'd I Say, and Steely Dan's Do It Again, among many others, would have lost a good deal of their character had they featured the Rhodes instead of the Wurli. Dutch pianist, composer, and bandleader Michiel Braam happens to be a Wurlitzer fan, and according to his website even sold his Rhodes (not that he was playing it much) in favor of a Wurlitzer 200A when one became available. The fact that Braam plays any sort of electric keyboard might come as a surprise, since jazz pianists with his level of mastery often tend to berate instruments that must be plugged into a wall socket to make an audible sound. But Braam, despite Dutch jazz credentials comparable to those of Misha Mengelberg, has a rather pop-friendly streak and, as Hosting Changes proves, doesn't shrink from the pleasures of an electrified groove, either. Hosting Changes is an intriguing release not only because of this atypical setting for the leader of the Bik Bent Braam big band, the Bentje Braam quartet, and Trio BraamDeJoodeVatcher -- but also because it is a companion piece to the latter trio's Change This Song CD, and in fact includes many of the same tunes, with names that are all anagrams of the Change This Song album title (and in fact, "Hosting Changes" is an anagram of "Change This Song" as well). With these tunes and this instrumentation it would seem nearly impossible for Braam, "semi-acoustic" bassist Pieter Douma, and drummer/percussionist Dirk-Peter Kölsch to resist a jazz-rock-funk feeling, and so the band slips into a groove and joyfully rolls with it through a good portion of the disc.

1		Gosh, Ethnics Gan
2		Congesting Hash
3		Ah, Gents Coshing
4		Haggish Consent
5		Can Ghosts Neigh?
6		Sh, Asthenic Gong
7		Agog Shin Stench
8		Songs Each Night
9		Nightsong Aches

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