Description
Earl Klugh would be the first to admit he’s not really a jazz musician but rather a pop instrumentalist. His strength has always been his ability to compose catchy melodies and then play them with arpeggio-styled harmonies on his acoustic guitar. His weakness has always been a gooey sentimentality that tends to surround his melodies with kitschy, melodramatic arrangements. “Across the Sand,” the tune which opens and closes the album, begins with a watered-down Central African drum pattern and then adds a South African vocal harmony (sung by the gospel group Commissioned) before Klugh enters and plays a pretty guitar line over synth padding. The melody is diverting, but it never builds and the setting is so carefully inoffensive that the whole thing is soon forgotten. The album’s title track is a more traditional uptempo fusion outing but slips just as quickly from mind. So do the romantic ballads, “Far from Home” and “The Highway Song,” which feature saxophonist Ray Manzerolle. Drummer Gene Dunlap, who has played on 10 Klugh albums including Move, has a new recording of his own, Groove with You. Dunlap’s longtime employer contributes pretty guitar-picking to a remake of the old War instrumental, “City, Country, City,” and to the Brazilian-flavored “The Little Ones.” Manzerolle plays reeds on all 11 cuts, and Patrice Rushen adds a piano solo to the hip-hop-influenced “Briana Rence.” Dunlap distinguishes himself from Klugh by emphasizing R&B rhythms more than pop melodies, but the easy-listening approach to inconsequential instrumental music remains the same. –Geoffrey Himes
