The boxed set of Bruce Hornsby's music, Intersections, is simply astonishing.

For a few years, in the late-1980s, Bruce was hot commercially, producing a string of hits. (It's surprising how many hits he had!) Then the public's musical taste moved on. For a while, that bothered him, because he wasn't selling as many records as he had. But, he told me a few years ago, he finally stopped worrying about trying to please a fickle record-buying public. Instead, he decided to simply work on his craft.

That's why the music on Intersections is astonishing. Nearly all of the 53 songs in the set are live. (For those who want to hear the hits exactly as they sounded, there's a DVD included of the 1980s videos made of those hits.) But his playing from more recent years shows that his musicianship is far better now than it was when the public was in love with him! And, since he's not worried about selling records, his music has become beyond classification. He was a classically-trained piano perfomance major in college, and some of the selections on Intersections are classical -- almost. His various arrangements turn many of his hits into jazz -- almost.

Maybe I can describe it in this way: Bruce plays rock and roll from the foundation of classical training, and, in the performance, the songs stretch out with jazz-like improvising. His band is full of incredibly accomplished musicians who are able to play off each other like a jazz band does. But there are also many solo pieces in the set. And there are songs Bruce plays with the Grateful Dead, with the Nitty Gritty Dirt band and Ricky Skaggs (bluegrass), with Branford Marsalis (one of the best working saxophonists today); there's even one track of Bruce playing free jazz with the legendary Ornette Coleman!

Intersections is a collection of tracks from a unique, highly accomplished and simply astonishing musician.