Album Review: Norman Brown- Let It Go

I was temporarily dumbfounded when Steve Kraske hit me with an unexpected on-air question while I was highlighting Julian Vaughn’s new single on KCUR last week: “Do you like smooth jazz?”

Well, do I?

The brevity of the segment didn’t allow me to tell Kraske that repeated spins of Norman Brown’s new album Let It Go soothed my frayed nerves a few days earlier.  The Kansas City native’s pleasing guitar work on “It Keeps Coming Back” and his sultry duet with the R&B thrush Chanté Moore on “Holding You” acted as enchanting sedatives.

So yeah, smooth jazz definitely has a place in my life.

In response to Kraske’s query, I mumbled something about my occasional appreciation of music that makes no demands on the listener.  I also suggested that smooth jazz was “the people’s music,” awkward code for “more popular than mainstream jazz in the black community.”  To be sure, much of Let It Go sounds more like the output of the neo-soul star Jill Scott than the late jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery.  And that’s precisely why I embrace it.

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)