Smooth Jazz Therapy

Chris Big Dog Davis - Brighter

Grammy nominated writer and producer Chris ‘Big Dog’ Davis finally got round to releasing his own album, ‘Focus’, in 2020. It turned out to be well worth the wait with sumptuous tracks such as ‘Its All Love’ and collaborations with smooth jazz heavyweights Gerald Albright, Kim Waters, Ace Livingston, Maysa, Marty Q, the late great Nick Colionne and trumpeter Rick Braun. ‘Focus’ proved to be one of the contemporary jazz events of the year and now he is back with ‘After The Storm’, a tight thirteen-track collection that has already garnered the single ‘Low Down’. Next up for the airwaves is the extremely in the pocket ‘Brighter’ that features Lin Rountree on trumpet.

Lovely track

 

Tony Toni Tone - Anniversary

Old School Cool is an occasional feature that, for those of a certain age, retraces the journeys of a musical lifetime in a way that keeps the memories flooding back. This time around it’s the Tony Toni Tone hit ‘Anniversary’ from their 1993 ‘Sons of Soul’ project. Formed in 1987, Tony Toni Tone enjoyed a number of chart hits and good album sales for a considerable part of the nineties. The line up was a family affair with brothers Dwayne and Raphael Wiggins teaming up with cousin Timothy Christian. ‘Anniversary’ was written by Raphael Wiggins together with keyboard player Carl Wheeler and when they originally laid down the track they looked around for a sax soloist and found none other than Gerald Albright. The end product was a sensation and gave Tony Toni Tone one of their very biggest career hits.

It was only a year later that Albright went into the Aire studios in Los Angeles to record his solo CD ‘Smooth’ for Atlantic. A phenomenal album, not least for the fact that it included Albright’s own version of ‘Anniversary’, it was packed with a succession of great cuts and featured guest performances from Will Downing, Vesta Williams and Lalah Hathaway. Lee Ritenour, Stanley Clarke and Paul Jackson Jr. were among the supporting musicians and a further interesting feature, at least for students of liner notes, was that the comments on ‘Smooth’ were added by NBA superstar Magic Johnson.

Albright’s ‘Anniversary’ can also be found on the highly acclaimed 1994 compilation ‘Jazz Fusions One’.

It’s worth noting that although the Albright version is a mere four minutes thirty three seconds long the Tony Toni Tone original weighs in at a massive nine minutes and twenty four seconds. Shades of Isaac Hayes and no mistake! Although truncated forms abound this original length version can also be found on the 2000 compilation ‘Heart of Soul.

I am indebted to Ian Phillips for coming up with the concept for this feature on ‘Anniversary’. Ian writes some great music related Twitter posts and is well worth a follow.

 

TNR Collective - Hypnotized

Earlier in 2024, Trippin N Rhythm recording artists Ryan La Valette, Lemek, Nicholas Cole and Catie Water, in the guise of TNR Collective, released the haunting single ‘Hypnotized’. It was a fine example of what might best be described as quiet storm smooth jazz and now, buoyed by the success of this choice tune, the collective, joined this time by sax-man Randy Scott and English guitarist Mark Jaimes, are all se to release the follow up ‘Sunkissed’.

Check back here soon for more on ‘Sunkissed’ from the TNR Collective.

 

Blake Aaron - Love and Rhythm

Up for GRAMMY® consideration in the category Best Contemporary Instrumental Album is ‘Love and Rhythm’ from guitarist Blake Aaron. It is a project for which Aaron has assembled a veritable who’s who of contemporary jazz talent including Bob Mintzer on sax, Mel Brown on bass, Hussain Jiffry also on bass and drummer Will Kennedy. Other first-call players on the album include bass player Alex Al, percussionist Ramon Yslas, drummers Eric Valentine and Tony Moore, keyboard player Carnell Harrell, and a formidable horn section comprising David Mann, Trevor Neumann, Donald Hayes, Michael Stever, Jimmy Reid, Andrew Neu and Nick Lane.

Aaron wrote and produced the album alongside big hitters of the genre Adam Hawley and Greg Manning while to date three singles from ‘Love and Rhythm’ have made it to number one on the Billboard chart. The latest single from the album, ‘The Way You Sway’, is a slice of vintage 70s inspired instrumental R&B which is notable for many things including Aaron’s dexterous playing on electric jazz guitar and more of that extremely crisp horn section.

Jackiem Joyner - Lokichogio

Brand new from soprano sax player Jackiem Joyner comes the excellent single ‘Lokichogio’. With its unique blend of afrobeats and jazz the track was inspired by the time Joyner spent in Kenya and Southern Sudan.

 

Boney James - Slide

‘Slow Burn’ by sax-man Boney James will be released October 18 on the Concord label. It will be James’ nineteenth studio album and the latest single to be lifted from it is the tight, in the groove, ‘Slide’. It is the third single to be taken from it and follows ‘All I Want Is You’ and ‘Butterfly’,

No doubt about it, ‘Slow Burn’ has all the makings of the contemporary jazz event of 2024.

 

Marion Meadows - AI Moonrise

Taken from his forthcoming album ‘Just Doing Me’ that will be released October 25 on the Shanachie Entertainment label, ‘AI Moonrise’ is the sort of smoothed out number that we have come to expect from sax-man Marion Meadows. Indeed three decades and seventeen albums into what has developed into a stellar career Meadows has never sounded better.  With the exception of one carefully crafted cover Meadows wrote and recorded ‘Just Doing Me’ over a two year period with contributions from musicians and producers such as Chris “Big Dog” Davis, Rahni Song, Wirlie Morris, and Paul Brown, among others.

Check back here soon for a complete review of ‘Just Doing Me’.

 

Norman Brown - Strollin

The latest album from smooth jazz innovator Norman Brown is the sensational ‘It Hits Different’ that was released March 29 on the Shanachie Entertainment label

‘It Hits Different’ has already spawned radio singles such as ‘Anything’ (where Brown returns to the tight, in the pocket, contemporary jazz with which he made his name) and the title cut that features vocalist Wirlie Morris and which, plain and simple, is an outrageously delicious slice of urban jazz.

The latest track to be serviced to radio is the jazzy ‘Strollin’, an ultra cool collaboration with keyboard player Tom Schuman.

Schuman can rightly be described as contemporary jazz royalty having been an integral member of Spyro Gyra since age sixteen and even before the band’s first release. Starting from ‘Catch The Sun’ in 1980 and up until 2022 (when left the line-up to relocate to Europe) he has performed on all of Spyro Gyra's albums and has written or co-written over sixty Spyro Gyra compositions.