Patrick Bettison’s Walkin’ All Around is a unique blend of jazz improvisation and world beats. I might be a bit biased, but I think it’s a great CD. Patrick Bettison is my husband, and he recorded Walkin’ All Around in our small two bedroom apartment. I’d hunker down in the bedroom while he recorded himself beating on a TV table in the living room. The living-room floor was constantly strewn with cables. He was always looking for new objects to shake or beat for percussion–boxes of couscous, vitamin bottles. Sometimes I’d timidly stick my head through the door and ask if I could get a drink of water. Now that the recording, mixing and mastering of the CD is done, you’d think I’d never want to hear it again, but I still want to listen to it. I slip it into the CD player on my commute to work. It’s one of my favorite CD’s. The tracks on the CD range from silly to sad. Some have a New Age feel and some sound like traditional jazz. My favorite tracks are Boxing the Clown, Walkin’ All Around, and Missed Friend

Walkin' All Around is a breath of fresh air & a delightfully fun musical escape. You certainly won't tire of walkin' all around & listening to this terrific little treasure of a CD.

Patrick Bettison is a musician who has worked with many artists in the past, and with the help of friend Tom Carabasi, they've created a delightful instrumental that takes the listener on a unique trip around the musical world "without leaving your easy chair". The appropriately titled Walkin' All Around is definitely rooted in jazz, and this album would fit in very well with the works on the ECM label, especially "Cornelius", one almost expects for Pat Metheny or Paul Motian to start playing. It's jazz, but not smooth jazz, this is more along the lines of that "Saturday morning chill out" music, where you hear a lot in these songs but nothing is too busy to where it becomes a distraction. Bettison offers his musicianship, while Carabasi provides the rhythms through various percussion instruments, whether it's a standard drum set, or instruments such as a shakere, an udu, or even a Tibetian bell. What makes this album work for me is that the idea behind it is simple, for it's nothing more than two musicians creating beautiful sounds for the love of wanting to create beautiful sounds. Through multi-tracking, they both create songs that could easily be interpreted and performed by full bands or jazz orchestras, such as "Joe Beebless" (an additional string arrangement would be interesting with this one). Other times, they just keep things to a bare minimum and it's nothing more than two guys communicating with music, whether it's showing how excited they are by looking at "The Ladies", or making a grander statement with other pieces. Whether it is for the "Saturday morning chill out" or turning this into your Sunday morning music, Walkin' All Around is deserving of your time.