In need of a miracle

Press, 10 April 1980, Page 18

In need of a miracle

Witt

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Nevin Topp

SMOKEY ROBINSON “Where Tiler’s Smoke” (Motown STML 6193). This is the eighth solo album that Smokey Robin-

son has released since he and the Miracles parted company in 1972, and the man has finally smoked the big one by coming up with a hit called “Cruisin’,” his first smash in quite a few years. However, for all that, “Where There’s Smoke” seems to take Over where Michael Jackson’s “Off the Wall” left off, with the same high vocals over a disco beat. Side one is called “Smoke” but it does not get in your eyes, and side two, “Fire,” except for an extended “Cruisin’,” does not generate all that much heat

Part of the problem might be the producer, Smokey himself, as well as the choice of material, which lyrically is just a little wanting. For a solid disco rhythm and the musicians to go with it then the Crusaders’ “Street Life” track was hard to beat last year.. “Where There’s Smoke” is a good album for getting everyone to dance, but somehow it lacks punch both musically and lyrically.

JOHN KLEMMER “Brazilia” (ABD AA1116). “Mosaics” (MCA2-8014). Michael Franks is not the only United States artist to seek out the Latin American rhythm, for saxophonist John Klemmer has returned to South

America for musical influences on “Brazilia.” an import. Klemmer started out in 1967, but it was not until “Touch” in 1975 that he became an attractive proposition, particularly for his early, use of jazzfusion music. “Barefoot Ballet,” his 1976 release, was a stunner, but the disco influence was present on “Arabesque” (1978). “Brazilia” sees a welcome return to Klemmer’s earlier lyrical, romantic style of playing, as in “Barefoot Ballet,” yet with a bit of the be-bop and avant-garde styles of his late 1960 s years, when he was experimenting with a great many styles including Latin American. Some members of Weather Report are on the album, but it is the sound of the saxophone, and piano from Victor Feldman (the Crusaders) and Oscar Castro-Neves, which dominate. The exception is Gershwin’s “Summertime,” but as on his interpretation of Jani’s lan’s “At Seventeen,” Klemmer does not seem to be at home with cover versions, which seem to inhibit his style. “Copacabana” is an excellent track, along with the title-track, “Brazilia,” and Klemmer has also rerecorded “My Butterfly Has V/ings,” which, when first recorded, featured his use of the Echoplex. For those who want - a potted musical history of Klemmer since his success in 1976 with “Touch” to “Arabesque,” then the compilation double album “Mosaics” is out Klemmer seems to enjoy exploring one musical concept an album, so that “Mosaics,” while adequate, does not allow the listener quite the latitude his individual albums offer. As always the problem with compilations is that not all the tracks offered are the ones that the listener would have chosen.

STEVE FORBERT “Jackrabbit Slim” (Epic ELPS 4018). When Steve Forbert released his first album, “Alive On Arrival” he was hyped to be the new Dylan, sort of stumbling into Greenwich Village way Zimmerman did. It is fortunate that For* bert has been able to sustain the power to bring but his next album, “Jackrabbit Slim,” which shows him tb be less like Dylan than Bob is to Abba, or for that matter, Cat Stevens, as another New Zealand reviewer put it. Steve Forbert is fairly easy listening, not at all testing to the ear, and his lyrics are unassuming. Yet his songs have nice melodies, so that the music is interesting and has atmosphere. “Say Goodbye to Little Jo” and “Wait,” the last two songs on side one, have enough atmosphere in them to match a New York winter, while the opening track on side two, “Make It All So Real,” is a story about a . singer on stage losing his lover to another man, both of whom are in the audience. The use of the piano is such that the joint is borderon on B-grade,.. and there is a sax solo to push the song along. Humour is also a For.bert forte, as on “Complications,” a song resembling “And Mother Came Too,” which Don McLean does. Forbert is no Dylan, or Stevens either. “Jackrabbit Slim” has him standing on his own, and that is the way it should, be.