If you enjoyed “Sun and Moon”, Jiva’s first CD then you’ll simply love “Day Into Night”, their latest. Here, Jiva builds on their formula of soulful compositions with touch of bossa nova rhythms. Khari Simmons, the founder of Jiva, places an emphasis on live instrumentation. Each member of the group is very talented in their own right, with a number of them having outside projects of their own. The result is a vibrant, refreshing offering of soul music with no boundaries that will quench your musical thirst. “Sol E Lua” (which is Portuguese for Sun and Moon) is a wonderful song with a samba rhythm that displays awesome percussion work by Forrest Robinson. “Better2gether” is another pleasing track that relies on the vocal harmonies of Brenda Nicole and Chantae Cann as well as Khari’s fine synth work. “This Love” features the lovely vocals of Rhonda Thomas. Rhonda was the featured vocalist on “Stars” and “I Realized”, the hits from Jiva’s debut cd. This upbeat soothing jam is bound to be a winner as well. “Understand” also features another great vocalist, Alex Lattimore, who really shines here as well. Jiva shows here that they have no plans of succumbing to the sophomore jinx. In fact you could say that this disc is even stronger than the first. The one issue I had with “Sun and Moon” was that the remixes filled out the end of the disc. Especially when I had already owned those remixes for months. Therefore, I always skipped over them. No such problem here. This is simply a great disc that you’ll enjoy from start to finish. It’s quality records like this that remind you why you love music in the first place.
