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| 1. | What Would James Do?
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| 2. | Get On The Floor
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| 3. | Bobo's Groove
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| 4. | Capetown Strut
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| 5. | Close To You
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| 6. | I Found The Klugh
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| 7. | Embrace The Spirit
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| 8. | The Road To Peace (A Prayer For Haiti)
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| 9. | Highway 70
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| 10. | From the Soul
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Jazz
Gerald Albright - Arranger, Composer, Drum Programming, Engineer, EWI, Flute, Guitar (Bass), Keyboards, Liner Notes, Percussion Programming, Producer, Sax (Alto), Sax (Baritone), Sax (Soprano), Sax (Tenor), Synthesizer, Synthesizer Programming, Vocals (Background)
Albert J. Roman - Cover Design
Burt Bacharach - Composer
Don Murray - Mixing
Earl Klugh - Guitar (Acoustic)
Erik Zobler - Piano Engineer
Fred Wesley - Trombone
George Duke - Piano
Greg Cook - String Engineer
Hal David - Composer
Larissa Collins - Art Direction
Lori Stoll - Photography
Louis Johnson - Composer
Luther "Mano" Hanes - Keyboards
Mark Cargill - String Arrangements, String Conductor, String Section
Mark Wexler - Executive Producer
Michael Jackson - Composer
Rick Watford - Guitar, Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Electric)
Ricky Lawson - Drums
Sangwook "Sunny" Nam - Mastering
Selina Albright - Vocals (Background)
Tracy Carter - Keyboards
Yuya Morishita - Drum Recordings
Jazz and R&B icon Gerald Albright is considered to be one of the most innovative and successful artists of the last twenty-five years. With the release of Pushing The Envelope on Heads Up International, a division of Concord Music Group, Albright's super cool side is back. With its polished soul/jazz vibe, Pushing The Envelope is a showcase for Albright's remarkably fine balance of songcraft and musicianship, and features special guest appearances by Fred Wesley on trombone, Earl Klugh on acoustic guitar and George Duke on acoustic piano.
Produced and arranged by Albright, Pushing The Envelope provides the perfect opportunity for this master musician/saxophonist/songwriter to exhibit his skills. He plays soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophones, flutes, bass guitar, and keyboards, and also handles synthesizer, EWI and drum programming. Albright's band on most of the album includes keyboardists Tracy Carter and Luther "Mano" Hanes, guitarist Ricky Watford and drummer Ricky Lawson.
Alongside eight Albright originals, Pushing The Envelope offers two cover tunes: a fresh new take on Michael Jackson and Louis Johnson's "Get On The Floor," and Burt Bacharach and Hal David's classic hit "Close To You." Albright's daughter, Selina, also contributes her vocal skills to both of these well-polished tracks.
"I was in Nairobi, Kenya last year, and I woke up singing the tune ‘Close To You,'" recalls Albright. "I heard the whole arrangement in my head that morning. I jotted down some notes and it was one of the first tunes I recorded for the album."
Albright dedicates "Bobo's Groove" to the life and music of American jazz percussionist Willie
Albright's distinctive tone heats up again on "I Found The Klugh," which spotlights Earl Klugh, considered by many to be one of the finest acoustic guitarists today. "Earl and I have been friends for a long time," Albright says. "I've appreciated his music for a number of years, and when I wrote this tune, I heard Earl on it. He has a sound all his own."
One of the biggest stars of R&B, contemporary and straight-ahead jazz, Gerald Albright has earned his reputation as a "musician's musician." Born in Los Angeles, he began piano lessons at an early age. Albright's love of music picked up considerably when he was given a saxophone that had belonged to his piano teacher. By the time he enrolled at the University of Redlands, he was already a polished saxophonist. Albright decided to switch to bass guitar after he saw Louis Johnson in concert. A few months after graduating from college, he joined jazz pianist/R&B singer Patrice Rushen, who was in the process of forming her own band. Later, when the bass player left in the middle of a tour, Albright replaced him and finished the tour on bass guitar.
During the '80s, Albright became a highly requested session musician, playing on albums by a wide variety of artists - including Anita Baker, Ray Parker, Lola Folana, Atlantic Starr, Olivia Newton-John, the Temptations and Maurice White. He also toured extensively with Les McCann, Jeff Lorber, Teena Marie, the Winans, Marlena Shaw, Quincy Jones, and Whitney Houston, among many others. Albright also went on to record numerous successful solo albums for Atlantic Records. Two albums hit the number one slot on Billboard's Top Contemporary Jazz Chart, and were nominated for GRAMMY Awards in 1989 and 1990. Phil Collins asked him to front a Big Band in 1998, and they toured together. The two of them also recorded one of Albright's tunes, "Chips N' Salsa" on Collins' Big Band Project, entitled A Hot Night In Paris. Later that year, Albright released Pleasures of the Night with Will Downing on Verve Forecast, which hit No. 1 on Billboard's Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart as well.
Over the years, Albright has appeared on numerous TV shows such as A Different World, Melrose Place and BET Jazz segments, as well as piloting a show in Las Vegas with Designing Women star Meshach Taylor. Albright was selected to be one of 10 saxophonists to play at President Clinton's inauguration ceremony. Along the way, he has sold over a million albums in the U.S. alone and has appeared on nearly 200 albums by other artists.
Pushing the Envelope is easily Gerald Albright's most rewarding session to date. "The title reflects all the tunes on the project," Albright says. "I didn't want to hold anything back. I really wanted to push the envelope and give people a little more edge. I come from the era where we didn't think of a formula - we went from the gut."
Pushing the Envelope is an ironic title for a Gerald Albright album because quite frankly, pushing the envelope is something that the saxophonist hasn't done very much of during his long recording career. Nonetheless, some optimists will see that title and hope that Albright has given listeners another hardcore jazz treasure like 1991's Live at Birdland West, which remains the most essential album in his catalog (at least as of early 2010). But no, Pushing the Envelope isn't another Live at Birdland West. This is primarily a smooth jazz album, not the type of hell-bent-for-improvisation disc that he is still quite capable of delivering. The good news, however, is that as much as this 2010 release caters to smooth jazz radio at times, it is seldom embarrassing the way that some of his early releases on Atlantic were embarrassing (1987's Just Between Us, 1989's Bermuda Nights, and 1990's Dream Come True were among the worst offenders). There are definitely some likable tracks here. The lively "Capetown Strut," for example, combines pop-jazz and South African pop with infectious results, and equally catchy are the jazz-funk grooves that Albright provides on "Highway 70," "What Would James Do?" (an obvious shout-out to the late Godfather of Soul James Brown), and the Afro-Cuban-tinged "Bobo's Groove" (which Albright dedicates to percussionist Willie Bobo). Unfortunately, Pushing the Envelope does venture into elevator music territory on occasion; Albright's saccharine performance of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "Close to You" is a prime example of why smooth jazz has such a bad reputation -- even among the non-purist jazz commentators who have been strong proponents of, say, David Sanborn, Ronnie Laws, or Grover Washington, Jr. And equally forgettable is Albright's cover of Michael Jackson's "Get on the Floor," which he reduces to innocuous background music (although Jackson's original 1979 version from Off the Wall was certainly a gem). But despite the presence of a few weak tracks, Pushing the Envelope on the whole isn't a bad album. Anyone who owns a copy of Live at Birdland West knows that Albright is capable of a lot more, but even so, this disc has more going for it than a lot of the smooth jazz-oriented releases of 2010. ~ Alex Henderson, All Music Guide |
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