Starting to Fall
You Don’t Know Me
Close Enough
Get Home
In Your Eyes
Understanding Love
The Last Day
Loving You
I’m Calling You
You Don’t Know What Love Is
Smile
Give In
Don’t Let Love Get Away
I Always Think Of You
Let Me Be The One
Marilyn Scott, vocals
Russell Ferrante, George Duke - keyboards
and drum programming
Renato Neto, Patrice Rushen, and Joe Vannelli
- keyboards
Jimmy Haslip, Fred D. Washingon - bass
Michael Landau, Ray Fuller, James Hara, Ricardo
Silveria, Mike Miller, Paul Jackson Jr - guitar
Steve Tavilone - soprano sax and ewi
Katisse Buckingham - soprano sax and drum
programming
Jim Marentic - saxophones
Evette Harp - alto sax
Joseph Heredia, Terri Lyne Carrington - drums
Paulino De Costa, Daryl "Munyungo"
Jackson - percussion
Brenda Russell, Maxayne Lewis, Lori Perry,
Jim Gilstrap, Leslie Smith - backing vocals
Bob Mintzer, Walt Fowler, Brandon Fields -
horns
Marilyn Scott’s 9th
album is a compilation of her favorite
previously recorded tracks. While there
are two songs that have not been previously
released in the US (Peter Gabriel's
"In Your Eyes," and "Understanding Love"),
longtime fans will have little reason
to interest themselves in this album.
It is more a greatest-hits compilation
as selected by the performer herself
(hence the title, "Handpicked").
That said, this does
a nice job of collecting together in
one place Marilyn Scott’s best work.
It is a consistently well-produced,
slick form of smooth jazz/pop. The horns
are tasteful, if not inspired, and the
soloists and pianists do support Scott’s
vision. While there is a predilection
for obviously-electronic reverb on the
saxophones, the performances themselves
are fine. Scott’s voice is soulful at
times and she does a good job of knowing
what she does well. Once she’s found
her niche she excels at staying inside
of that box. There is never a moment
where she seems to be taking any chances,
but she knows her audience well and
plays to them perfectly.
The rest of the band
is simply there to fill up the sonic
space required. Generally, the electric
keyboards, drum machines, and bass work
are all workmanlike. They stay out of
the way of everything else and generally
sound as if someone typed the arrangements
up on paper, looped everything and hit
a "groove quantize" button
on their midi processor. The rhythm
sections using a human drummer are generally
better, though even here there is little
interplay among the musicians. There
are also occasional poor choices in
patches used during keyboard solos,
where a cheap horn patch is used for
a keyboard solo rather than using either
a real trumpet or flugelhorn or selecting
a patch that would have sounded less
like a wannabe trumpet and more like
a keyboard.
With those shortcomings,
this is a compilation mostly for those
who are already fans but who haven’t
the inclination for buying her entire
catalog. It does a nice job of picking
representative music for Marilyn Scott,
and taken as such it is a success. As
an album of great jazz, the best that
can be said is that it will offend relatively
few ears. That is probably the point.
Patrick Gary
CD Reviews
Prana Entertainment PRD0007 [76:44]
DDD
