Kevin Ray Clark, “The Awakening of Calm” (Independent)

New Orleans musicians and New Age music are an unlikely mix. But trumpeter Kevin Clark gave his melodies to jazz pianist Matt Lemmler to reconfigure; the result is the instrumental backdrop for a narration of poems by Walt Whitman, Rumi, Ralph Waldo Emerson and others. If you like New Age concepts and slow music to meditate to (as I do), you will enjoy this. Every aspect of the CD is well-executed. Any project that gets these scribes’ words out there in the ether is a worthwhile endeavor; a nice example of what New Orleans musicians can accomplish when they want to stretch.