Alex Jackson

Norman Brown is the US born smooth jazz guitarist whose success has seen him dubbed 'the second coming of George Benson'.Brown's young life was spent in Kansas, where early exposure to Hendrix convinced him he wanted to be an axeman. He was turned on to jazz by his father and after graduation he moved to the West Coast to study at Musicians Institute in LA. Gigging on the LA jazz scene eventually led to a deal with Motown Records and his debut album. The album, which featured collaborations from Stevie Wonder and Boyz II Men was the first of a run of well received releases and he built his fanbase with extensive touring.

On his fourth album, Paul Taylor calls upon five different producers: Dino Esposito, Kurt Jackson, Mathew Edralin, Jeff Lorber, and Oji Pierce. The function of these musicians for the most part is to create largely synthesized backgrounds for the soprano saxophonist to solo over in his familiar, melodic manner. Esposito handles the title song and "Flight 808," the first two tracks; Jackson does "PT Cruiser" (with Edralin) and "Sunshine" (on which he sings some bland romantic lyrics); Lorber is responsible for "Tuesday Afternoon," "Pendulum," "Come Over," "Free Fall," and "Palisades"; and Pierce is behind the board for "Dream State" and "Summer Park."…

Tomi Malm hails from Finland and has been a respected figure for the past twenty-plus years on the North-European music scene. Malm works as a composer, arranger, orchestrator and producer on a multitude of successful records, TV themes and multimedia scores. In 2009, Malm rose to international attention with the now-classic release of Fly Away: The Songs Of David Foster, also on the Contante & Sonante label. Malm arranged and produced a number of David Foster's classics on Fly Away. Malm showed such creativity and freshness on these recordings that he gained high praise and blessings from “The Hitman” David Foster himself. That project took the West Coast/quality pop music scene by storm, and in the past few years it has become a landmark for musicians and fans of the genre on every corner of the planet.

The legendary keyboardist started making his unique brand of old-school soul meets modern funk back when old-school was still in session, and the title of his third Narada Jazz disc is a throwback to that era, when the 45 RPM was king. Rather than overwhelm this time with hardcore commercial funk grooves and calculated radio hooks, Jeff Lorber is more into cool vibes and soulful atmospheres. Melodies have always been his gift, so those just come naturally, as on the laid-back, chillout opening track, which features a lush, loose acoustic piano lead. There are less horns than usual, but Ron King (trumpet) and Gary Meek (sax) are given free reign to create snazzy textures on "Everybody Knows That" and the nifty, acoustic soul-jazz flavored title track.