Euge Groove
Just Feels Right
Narada
Oh, smooth jazz… your attraction continues to elude me. At home in an elevator, as call-waiting fodder and porn scene score you make sense, but removed from the absurd and/or awkward context you’re boring. As. Hell.
The liner notes of Just Feels Right dress the disc up as “contemporary jazz,” but from where I’m standing Vandermark 5’s last album only came out two years ago and was considerably more adventurous and timely than this retro throwback to the halcyon days of the late ’70s. It’s true that Euge and his session partners are all talented musicians and there is truth in song titles (“Chillaxin” being the epitome of this), but the emotionally barren take on “Just My Imagination” plants this disc squarely under the muzak canopy. It’s a place I surely don’t wish to be.
Narada: http://www.naradajazz.com
