Ron Warren: Reviews

Featuring and focusing on Native American flute, Ron Warren ventures into Americana, jazz, soft rock, folk rock, and even full-on rock 'n' roll with electric guitars. Never has this instrument sounded so agile, versatile and compatible with so many drastically different genres. Warren gives an impressive performance and takes you from haunting, yearning songs threaded with the emotional call of the cello answering the voice of the flute to reggae-influenced grooves. All the while, he maintains a cohesive package so that even while being so diverse, the album never seems scattered or tangential. An excellent choice for those who seek out the cedar flute.

Do you remember the first time you heard brilliantly performed and produced Native American influences, particularly emanating from those rich and full-on spiritual persuasions in skilled and passionate flute playing? Hmm.. maybe you do remember and maybe you don't. Ron Warren's Dancing the Full Moon however, is testimony to how those influences and musical leanings can be brought together to caress and illuminate the heart and soul!
Ron has produced an album that is, without a doubt, an epitaph in contemporary and traditional North and South American musical influences. Richly and colourfully dominant in some of the most effective and exquisite flute playing that I have ever heard, the album provides us with a vast array of bridges across genres that many of us thought to be the stuff of dreams. These expertly engineered bridges seem to effortlessly cross over the previously self-contained rivers of Contemporary Jazz, Folk, Rock, Americana, and Native American genres, to merge into one hell of an album.

Dancing the Full Moon is a brilliantly crafted album that has been performed by multi-talented masters. It's a classic album by anyone's standard and is one of the most engaging releases I have heard in a very long time. You really have to experience this epitaph of musical wonderment not just because of the superb instrumentation and vocal work.. but because sometimes.. life has it's absolute essentials and
Dancing the Full Moon is absolutely one of them.

I was just at a INAFA Conference. Flute music Galore !! Had a wonderful time and Ron Warren was one of the presentors, not to mention he did perform on stage. We had flute concerts for 4 nights in a row. By day: classes, by night: concerts. Truely an awesome experience. I took Ron's class and it was a pleasure to listen to him speak and hear him play. Yes he mixes some of the music but the basis is Native American and that is what is so intriguing. In the concerts he was the backbone playing his piano. I admire his talent and hope to attend more of his classes. His CDs are awesome. To blend the traditional Native Music with modern music is an art when you can combine the two and come up with something very beautiful and very Native.

The Washington Post praised his “pensively evocative music” as well as his “expressive and highly energetic” performances.

“Ron Warren’s debut CD is a rare pleasure. Filled with inspired percussion, expertly played flute, and some pretty cool effects...”

“I like the variety of tempos and instrumentation on the CD and the use of the extended scale for interesting and unpredictable melodies. Too many CD’s get one listen and then a place on the shelf. His gets a repeat listening!”

'Gazebo' is a song that reaches the bottom of the soul. I felt the music speaking to me...and still do by listening to his cd. Very earthy, very mellow, very spiritual.