Music » Smooth Jazz Music

The vocal superstar & jazz guitar legend's most popular hits showcased on a TV marketed single-disc compilation of timeless music! 19 remastered tracks, more than 75 minutes of magic.

Three of the biggest instrumental pop hits ever recorded were by trumpeters Hugh Masekela, Herb Alpert, and Chuck Mangione. Botti's fourth album comes equipped with more than enough catchy and light melodies to compete with that legacy, but it will probably be "All Would Envy," one of the two vocal tunes on Night Sessions, that will help this disc dent radio and sales charts. It's a song given an irresistible Brazilian lilt by its composer, Sting, who Botti has toured with, and sung hauntingly by Shawn Colvin. Like those aforementioned horn players, Botti does put an emphasis on rhythm on upbeat groove tunes like "Miami Overnight," "Streets Ahead," and especially "Blue Horizon," which has more than a hint of Europe's drum & bass sound, and features killer keyboard work by Billy Childs and album producer Kipper. But it's the Alpert-influenced "Through an Open Window," with its rock guitars and slick melody line that many may consider the hottest track. Most of the other tracks consist of Botti's crisp clear tone cutting through the kind of atmospheric, heavily padded keyboard music that has gotten him on smooth-jazz radio and Hollywood soundtracks. --Mark Ruffin

The smooth-jazz acoustic-guitar star gets his R&B groove on throughout many tracks on this beautifully recorded disc, and not just on the obvious tunes like the sneaky Isley Brothers cover, "Who's That Lady" (with Kirk Whalum cooking on sax), and the old Temptations number, "Just My Imagination," but also on the very funky "Turn It Out," with sax man Euge Groove, and the Latin-tinged "Bueno Funk," with Steve Cole on the horn. The rest of the album is about as dependable and complete an album White has put together since the promise he showed with Basia in the mid-'80s, which is to say smooth-jazz radio and fans are sure to be all over his thoughtful melodies and tasteful arrangements. Other guest stars include trumpeter Rick Braun, the ubiquitous keyboardist Jeff Lorber, and saxophonist Dave Koz, who warms the title ballad. More tracks sure to please fans of the very popular guitarist include "Pedro Blanco," and "Baby Steps." --Mark Ruffin

As learned from the broad-based popularity of his previous albums, people turn to saxophonist Boney James to do one thing: create sultry audio backdrops well suited for mingling, small talk, and romantic notions. James, rotating between tenor, soprano, and alto saxophones, faithfully delivers more of those goods on this, his sixth album. The mood sustained throughout all nine tracks (42-plus minutes runtime) is urbane, low-key, and cue-ball smooth. Chelle Davis provides breathy background vocals on the slow-grooving opening track, "Are You Ready?" and R&B crooners Shai take a more foreground role on the sweetly disarming "I'll Always Love You." Perhaps the album's most attractive cut is the slow urban crawl of "Boneyizm," with subdued interplay between James's tenor sax and Rick Braun's flügelhorn. Nothing shrill, outrageous, new, or significant awaits here, simply an engaging and pleasant listen. --Terry Wood

When Larry Carlton replaced Lee Ritenour in Fourplay's guitar chair in 1998, the big question was, what difference would he make. Would his more aggressive leanings toward blues and rock add the kind of punch that would keep Fourplay progressing beyond their easygoing roots? Their first two recordings with Carlton, 4 and Snowbound, offered hints of this direction, but Yes, Please! completes the transition, showing off a much more rambunctious ensemble for the new millennium. Typical tunes begin with Carlton going the subtle route (more in line with what Ritenour did) before exploding into feisty improvisations. "Free Range" starts as an elegant duet with his high tones blending seamlessly into Bob James's shimmering, laid-back keys over a gently simmering Nathan East-Harvey Mason groove. Then Carlton rises above the fray for a crackling, echoing solo that kicks the rhythm of the others up a notch. "Blues Force" has a hypnotic and seductive bluesy groove (led by James's keys) that acts as a bed for L.C. to play it crisp, then hard toward the end. James acts as softhearted harmonic foil for Carlton before taking a lively solo. What makes Carlton the perfect Fourplayer is his sweet, romantic, and acoustic side, which allows him to lead "Go with Your Heart" into terrain reminiscent of the vintage Fourplay sound. But even here, he waxes snappy on occasion, driving his bandmates up a notch. --Jonathan Widran

Chuck Mangione composed this music for a film soundtrack in 1978, but it quickly took on a life of its own when it was released as a two LP set, garnering a loyalty the film never enjoyed. Its film origins certainly show both in the purely atmospheric quality of some of the music and in the earnest vocals and awkward lyrics that introduce the suite and later reappear. However, the simple themes and the powerful, minimal orchestrations--brass and drums for funereal military music; cello, flute, guitar, and eerie voice for the very pretty "Consuelo's Love Theme"--retain a strong appeal. Mangione's own performance on fl?gelhorn--sometimes hinting at Miles Davis's Sketches of Spain transported to harsher terrain--is frequently riveting, a darkly expressive, soulful element that conveys undiluted passion, sorrow, and joy. --Adam Rains

Boney James is a master at combining cool R&B grooves and good melodies, then surmounting them with warmly memorable saxophone sounds. On Sweet Thing, the lighter, piping tone of his soprano sax floats smoothly through tunes like "East Bay" and "Ivory Coast," but he gets a distinctly funkier touch from his deeper horns. There's a cool intensity to his alto sax on "Nothin' but Love," while his soulful tenor is his main voice, whether biting gently into the beat on ballads or generating more heat over Latin tempos. James gets some terrific support here from David Torkanowsky on keyboards and Lenny Castro on percussion. Alex Al provides all the backing tracks for "Words (Unspoken)," a lightly pulsing carpet of keyboards and programming, while there are several good vocalists, including Tony Maiden on "Sweet Thing," Al Jarreau on "I Still Dream," and Eric Benet on the funky remix of "It's All Good." --Adam Rains

Japanese only SHM Pressing. The SHM-CD [Super High Material CD] format features enhanced audio quality through the use of a special polycarbonate plastic. Using a process developed by JVC and Universal Music Japan discovered through the joint companies' research into LCD display manufacturing SHM-CDs feature improved transparency on the data side of the disc allowing for more accurate reading of CD data by the CD player laser head. SHM-CD format CDs are fully compatible with standard CD players. Warner. 2009.

Release Date: 1991-02-05, Audio CD, Polygram Records

Like its predecessors, Kenny G's latest album, Breathless, is a collection of tuneful, easy-listening instrumentals baited with a couple of pop-soul vocal numbers. This album is built on Kenny G's most obvious strengths: his knack for writing hummable pop hooks and his ability to play those radio-friendly melodies in a breathy, fluid style that invites the listener to lie back and relax. When it comes to background music that's slightly catchier and peppier than most new age music, Kenny G is a master of his genre. The titles of Kenny G's instrumentals on are a good clue to his approach: "Sentimental," "The Joy of Life," "Forever in Love" and "The Wedding Song." Sentimental, in the sense of simplifying life to a set of comfortable feelings, is a good adjective for Kenny G's music, for even his wordless instrumentals push the listener's warm glow buttons while ignoring anything more complicated. The saxophonist himself programmed many of the drum, bass and keyboard parts on Breathless, contributing to the sense that everything's running on autopilot. --Jeffrey Himes