I had known of Barbara Dennerlein for many years, and had read about her, and seen her picture, thumbing through a book on jazz artists, but given that I find the instrument Laurens Hammond invented to be a poor and unmusical substitute for an organ, I hadn't expected to hear her. Until 1999, when I stumbled, in an idle web search, upon a picture that showed a very recognizable Barbara Dennerlein playing something that had drawSTOPS instead of drawBARS. On exchanging email with her, I learned that she had indeed branched out from tonewheels to real pipes. It was not until 2002 that she actually released her "real pipes debut" album, Spiritual Movement No. 1. Her U.S. distributor ignored it (evidently seeing it as some sort of sell-out), and so I ended up buying it from a gray-marketer. It was so good that I was one of several who lobbied the organ-specialty distributors to stock it. Then, in 2007, when she performed on the Mighty Austin at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion in San Diego (a recital that included pieces on the present CD), I drove 180 miles to hear her live, and finally meet her, and I was not disappointed.

Which brings us to the present CD. As good as Spiritual Movement No. 1 was, this is better. Where the former still had the "stick-to-the-score, stick-to-the-rehearsed-registrations" formality of a musician still learning what can be done with real pipes, the present recording shows the spontaneity, spark, and playfulness of one who has become every bit as comfortable with pipes as with tonewheels.

Rarely does Ms. Dennerlein stoop to simply attempting to make real pipes sound like a Hammond; instead, her playing is totally idiomatic to real pipes, and (in a sure sign that she knows the rules well enough to get away with breaking them) uses the time it takes pipes to settle into clear speech to create an effect I've never heard anywhere else.

Once again, the incredible breadth of Dennerlein's technique is on parade: in Spiritual Movement No. 1, she managed to suggest the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Fats Waller, and Ray Charles, along with everything in between; in Spiritual Movement No. 2, she gives us "The Unforgettable," a swinging tribute to Jimmy Smith, and "Funkish," in which I can hear more than a little boogie-woogie, and "New York Impressions," a tone poem whose title says it all, and even an arrangement of Mick Jagger's "Satisfaction."

If you're convinced that jazz could never sound good on real pipes, this is perhaps the album that will change your mind.
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Since her first pipe organ CD Spiritual Movement No. 1, Barbara Dennerlein has garnered quite a reputation in pipe organ circles as a jazz artist with extraordinary technique.  She has managed to take advantage of the power and lush sound of pipe organs and master their notoriously complex registers, sustain properties, individualized set ups, while simultaneously incorporating jazz, blues, classic and ambient sounds into a stunning soundscape.  Her prodigious technical skills and compositional prowess are on full display here.

Like Captain Kirk of Star Trek, on this CD she has boldly gone where no man has gone before – this is a worthy addition to any music collection.
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