After a quarter of a century in the Warner Bros. camp and five years on the recording sidelines,
Randy Crawford drew a circle back to the beginning, reuniting with keyboardist
Joe Sample. In turn, the old
Crusader put together a genuinely distinguished rhythm section, bassist
Christian McBride and drummer
Steve Gadd, and called upon
Tommy LiPuma to produce the disc. That combination ought to guarantee a certain floor of competence from the get-go -- and it's great to report that this disc always rises above it, sometimes considerably above it. By this time, both
Crawford and
Sample were established veterans -- and the music they make here seems to come so easily from within, with only minimal backing and nothing getting in their way.
Gadd puts out a propulsive beat on brushes that pushes the title track along just fine -- and his work on "See Line Woman" and "Last Night at Danceland" generates something resembling the irresistible
Crusaders groove, giving
Sample something to trip lightly and soulfully through. Every track seems to change style with a smooth movement of the clutch -- the slinky R&B funk of "Lovetown," the gentle Latin beat of "Rio de Janeiro Blue," the pure mainstream piano trio jazz of "But Beautiful," the heavy blues atmosphere of "Tell Me More and More and Then Some," a trip back to the 1960s' Top 40 with "Everybody's Talking" (dig
Randy's fervent high note that
Harry Nilsson once hit in falsetto). A very gratifying release -- considering how tempting it would have been to crank this out on autopilot.