Fever Ronnie Laws

When Ronnie Laws first started recording as a leader in 1975, one of the saxman's strongest allies was Wayne Henderson. That trombonist and founding member of the Crusaders (originally the Jazz Crusaders) was an expert when it came to combining the accessibility of soul and funk with the freedom of jazz, and his guidance proved to be a definite asset when he produced early Laws albums like Pressure Sensitive (1975) and Fever (1976). The popular Grover Washington, Jr. was a strong influence on Laws, whose appreciation of Mr. Magic asserts itself on everything from the funky "Let's Keep It Together" and the gritty "Captain Midnite" to Bobby Lyle's alluring "Night Breeze." This isn't to say that Laws was a Washington clone, or that he unaware of other soul-jazz saxmen like Eddie Harris and David "Fathead" Newman. Laws, in fact, was quite recognizable himself on both tenor and soprano.

After a long, rewarding career on the soul sidelines, Doc Powell's emergence into solo territory finds him in an Alphonse Mouzon-like bandleader mode, albeit slightly more inspiring mood and melody-wise. A skilled multi-instrumentalist, Powell on Inner City Blues comes across on his snappy core guitar strains like a chilled version of Norman Brown, complete with those fun and breezy vocal scats. Too often, however, Powell as producer relegates his punchy prowess to the background, settling for radio friendly simplicity in lieu of sustained funk whallop. Each truly potent revelation (such as Ronnie Foster's simmering B-3 solo) is balanced by a calculated commercial turn like the fluffy DeBarge cover "All This Love." Too many all-star guest vocals simply get in the way of the sterling instrumental passages which dominate.