For Such a Time as This is a powerful and uplifting program framed by the realities of global pandemic anxiety, persistent racism and racial injustice, and an acrimonious, fraught Presidential election season. It was in Los Angeles in early 2020, when the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a city-wide shutdown, that Reed made the decision to record the album with local L.A. musicians. By the end of June, he was ready and had assembled a gifted, young quartet to record a set of recently penned originals, carefully chosen standard old chestnuts, and - as he has done regularly over the past 15 years - some restorative Gospel selections.
The group (drum virtuoso Kevin Kanner, Australia-born bassist Alex Boneham, tenor and soprano saxophonist Chris Lewis) nonetheless displays the chemistry of a long-established band. Reed’s original composition Make Me Better is sung by the soulful Henry Jackson, who “puts a fine point on everything I’m hoping and wishing for – that I will be made better by this experience, and that I will encourage other people to be better as well.”
“This record is the first I’ve done framed by this kind of specific circumstance,” Reed concludes. “But even though we had to do it with these pandemic restrictions, it seemed normal because we were in the recording studio, where there’s no audience anyway. It’s the circumstances surrounding the creativity that were so different. All of that had an impact on the music.
Eric Reed, piano
Kevin Kanner, drums
Alex Boneham, bass
Chris Lewis, tenor and soprano saxophone
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