Al Jarreau - "This Time" (1980)

[GoogaMooga]

Al Jarreau - "This Time (Warner Bros., 1980). What is it about Al Jarreau? How do you file him? Under jazz? Easy? Jazz fusion vocal? Soul? Pop? Sophisto-pop? He was a genre unto himself, wasn't he? Closest to his sound that I can think of is Anita Baker, but there's still a ways to go to capture Al's jazzy inflections. The market was very receptive to his inoffensive sound forty years ago. Round about 1980, before new wave really took off, this sort of thing sold truckloads. In fact, the Al Jarreau album I am spinning right now is from that pivotal year, 1980. Disco was ebbing, punk was in its death throes, and modern R&B had yet to take hold. You know the deal: tasteful synthesizers, pastel music, sweater tied around the neck. Bacharach had not lived in vain. And George Benson went all-out. That was the same year, 1980: "Give me the night, a ha..." Al was the most versatile, and the hardest to pigeon-hole. He is in fact the only vocalist to date to secure Grammy wins in the pop, R&B, and jazz categories (he's received more than twenty Grammy nominations over his career and has claimed the trophy seven times).