The more you listen to the music Jeff Lorber made in the late 70's/early 80's the more it becomes clear how close early 80'surban pop/funk and urban jazz-pop. True those genres basically emanated from the same musical source but they share a lot of things in common. In the case of Jeff Lorber himself it all worked in his favor as he was able to create music that was gentle,commerical,hard grooving and even creatively improvisational all at the same time. The only other emmediate musician who seems to have the same abilities consistantly would be someone such as Joe Sample.
This particular album has more vocals on it than the Jeff Lorber related albums,not to mention that presense of the worlds then most popular and utilized session musicians such as Nathan East,John Robinson,Paulinho DaCosta-all of whom had done work with everyone from Michael Jackson to Toto around the same time and,despite Lorber at that time being actually somewhat lower on the pecking order in terms of popularity among the fusion/rare groove players at the time these people knew exactly how to deal with Jeff Lorber's unique way with twisting melodies with his sweetly funky playing on a variety of different keyboards-everything from plain jane fender rhodes piano to more unique sounding synthesizers such as the OBX and Prophet.
That mixture of organic sound and electronic futurism shows itself most often when the tempo on the music goes up.On vocal numbers such as "Full Moon",one of the stronger tunes here honestly along with instrumental material such as "Warm Springs","The Magician" and a modernized cover of Ronnie Laws almost over covered "Always There" you'll hear a basic genuine band sound ("real instruments" as some people might say) with electric guitars,live drums and electric bass and out of nowhere Lorber will fly out of the clean sophistifunk/jazz arrangement into a wild and spacy synthesizer solos and this became part of his trademark.
This also came to fruitation on the rather bluesy oriented,but still in keeping with it's basic urban jazz ethic "Delvans" as well as the midtempo grooves "Above The Clouds" and "Tierra Verde". There are also two urban contempory ballads in the title song and "Your Love Has Got Me"-pretty strong tunes actually when you really listen to them.
Track listing
01. "Tierra Verde" (Kenny Gorelick, Jeff Lorber) - 4:35
02. "Full Moon" (Tom Browne, Jeff Lorber, Marlon McClain) - 4:54
03. "Warm Springs" (Jeff Lorber) - 4:28
04. "It's a Fact" (Joseph Ericksen, Jeff Lorber) - 4:12
05. "The Magician" (Kenny Gorelick, Jeff Lorber) - 3:59
06. "Your Love Has Got Me" (Joseph Ericksen, Jeff Lorber) - 4:00
07. "Delevans" (Jeff Lorber) - 4:04
08. "Always There" (William Jeffrey, Ronnie Laws) - 4:30
09. "Above the Clouds" (Jeff Lorber) - 2:57
Main musicians
Jeff Lorber - keyboards, guitar on "Delevans"
Marlon McClain - guitars
Nathan East - electric bass guitar
John Robinson - drums
Vocalists
Greg Walker ("It's a Fact" and "Full Moon")
Arnold McCuller ("Full Moon" and "Your Love Has Got Me")
Sylvia St. James ("Your Love Has Got Me")
Lynne Davis (backing vocals)
Additional musicians
Kenny G. - soprano and tenor saxophone, flutes
Tom Browne - trumpet and flugelhorn on "Full Moon", "The Magician" and "Your Love Has Got Me"
Paulinho Da Costa - percussion
Pete Christlieb - horn contractor
Notes
Recorded: September 27, 1981, to January 10, 1982, Indigo Ranch Studios, Malibu, California
Genre: Smooth Jazz, Jazz fusion
Length: 37:40
Label: Arista Records
Producer: Jeff Lorber
© 1982
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