Time Out New York
Keyboard Magazine
Downbeat
Folk and Acoustic Music Exchange
All About Jazz
blogcritics.com
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Philadelphia Inquirer
Pittsburgh City Paper
Music Connection
Oakland Tribune
Time Out New York
“10 STARS”
Keyboard Magazine
“Drummer Bobbie Rae’s deft mixology of straight-ahead jazz, funk, and hip-hop is always just perfect… If you’re a jazz aficionado, this CD will give you newfound respect for rock songwriting. If you’re not, it may well turn you into one. Essential listening.”
Downbeat
Moments of either inspired vision or extremely well-rehearsed note choices fill the album….The piano solos, ensemble sections and arrangements are form-fitting and weighty. The album is certainly accessible…the drumming of Bobbie Rae, who fills the music with percussive effects and r&b fired grooves.
Folk and Acoustic Music Exchange
From start to finish, Good and Evil is a piano lover’s delight, brimming with endless variations, permutations, chases, and obliquities enticingly laid in a trio format, Bobbie Rae setting the percussives underneath her in a DeJohnette fashion cut with ever-so-subtle hints of Ronald Shannon Jackson (pay attention to the persistence of lightly inflected muscularity…
Amid the current interest in returning to old school virtues-impeccably intelligent creativity and such – Dept. of Good and Evil goes over like gangbusters….Each cut constitutes an individual wonderland of complexity, nuance, and soaring lyricality. Taken as a whole, the surfeit is overwhelming. It’s impossible that things could go wrong from here, it simply doesn’t happen, not when one has attained to such a station of expertise.
All About Jazz
Proof that modern pop/rock can provide plenty of grist for the improvising musician, Dept of Good and Evil is…even more successful than everlasting in its meshing of contemporary song with equally contemporary swing.
We could feel they were really having fun pushing each other. Yet they maintained the groove even as they stretched it. This is the real test of a drummer, and a testament to Bobbie Rae. Price said that “calling Bobbie Rae just a drummer is like calling Ben Franklin just a scientist.” I can’t say it any better: Price is right on. And Rae is as soulful, as hip and as beautiful a person as you would want to meet.
blogcritics.com
A significant discussion among seasoned, witty, insightful musicians who take various interesting topics and share opinions and possibilities. It’s a dialog that inspires attention.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
The recording is filled with wonderfully orchestrated and eclectic arrangements.
Philadelphia Inquirer
Lays down an ice-cold vibe that draws from orthodox and even smooth jazz to make a potent and unusual amalgam.
Pittsburgh City Paper
A bold set, yet it doesn’t come off as novelty…
Nor does it sanitize either the jazziness or the melodic quality of the originals.
Music Connection
An album that seamlessly blends post-bop cool with a clever grasp of indie Goth and modern pop.
Oakland Tribune
ONE OF THE MOST interesting jazz releases to cross my desk in a long time is the Dept. of Good and Evil’s new eponymous CD. On this disc, the group…tackles three original compositions, two standards and – here is where things get really intriguing – seven goth and pop covers.
© 2017 Bobbie Rae