Robinson

It's an irresistible budget-priced summary of their prime Motown recordings. There may be a couple of noteworthy songs missing, but many of their best-known songs are here, including "The Tracks of My Tears," "Ooo Baby Baby," "The Tears of a Clown" and "I Second That Emotion." Serious fans will want something more extensive, but this is an excellent introduction for neophytes and a great sampler for casual fans, considering its length and price. That doesn't erase the ridiculousness of the series title, but the silliness is excusable when the music and the collections are good.

For the most part, another easy-going trip to the mellower side of contemporary blues, Robinson's jazzy tone and buttery vocals applied to a couple of his '50s-era numbers ("Crazy Crazy Lovin'" and "Schoolboy") along with some intriguing new iteams and Lowell Fulson's mournful "Sinner's Prayer." Tasty backing helps too. His Japanese fans reverently dubbed Fenton Robinson "the mellow blues genius" because of his ultra-smooth vocals and jazz-inflected guitar work. But beneath the obvious subtlety resides a spark of constant regeneration – Robinson tirelessly strives to invent something fresh and vital whenever he's near a bandstand.

Jason Robinson - The Two Faces Of Janus (2010) {Cuneiform Records RUNE311 rec 2009}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 470 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 182 Mb
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© 2010 Cuneiform Records / Jason Robinson | RUNE 311
Jazz / Experimental Jazz / Modern Jazz / Saxophone

Currently serving as Assistant Professor of Music at Amherst College in Massachusetts, multi-reedist Jason Robinson originally obtained his Ph.D. in music from the University of California. A promising new arrival to the East Coast scene, Robinson's academic background imbues his episodic writing with an organically cohesive sensibility, while his years spent co-leading the longstanding bicoastal ensembles Cosmologic and the Cross Border Trio lend his focused improvisations a warm, economical lyricism.

"A Pocket Full Of Miracles" (TS306) is a 1970 album by Motown Records R&B group The Miracles,(AKA "Smokey Robinson & The Miracles") issued on its Tamla subsidiary label, one of three albums the group released that year. This album charted at #56 on the Billboard pop albums chart, and reached the top ten of the magazine's R&B albums chart, peaking at #10. It was released on September 30 of that year.

His Japanese fans reverently dubbed Fenton Robinson "the mellow blues genius" because of his ultra-smooth vocals and jazz-inflected guitar work. But beneath the obvious subtlety resides a spark of constant regeneration – Robinson tirelessly strives to invent something fresh and vital whenever he's near a bandstand. The soft-spoken Mississippi native got his career going in Memphis, where he'd moved at age 16. First, Rosco Gordon used him on a 1956 session for Duke that produced "Keep on Doggin'." The next year, Fenton made his own debut as a leader for the Bihari Brothers' Meteor label with his first reading of "Tennessee Woman." His band, the Dukes, included mentor Charles McGowan on guitar. T-Bone Walker and B.B. King were Robinson's idols.

Back in the late '70s, Smokey Robinson made a great comeback with his 1979 hit "Cruisin'." With his broadened lyrical style and more knowing in his voice, the aesthetic powered such album classics as Where There's Smoke and Warm Thoughts. 1981's Being With You, in effect, ended the ride, but the hits more than continued. The single "Being With You" is a deft update of Robinson's '60s naïveté and is certainly a great pop record. The same can't be said for most of the tracks here. Handing over the production reigns to George Tobin, some of Robinson's quirks and musical trademarks are lost to polished and radio-friendly production. The songs aren't great here, either. The didactic and reggae-tinged "Food for Thought" just comes off silly.