Now this is a great album but, fact is this isn’t a full one duet album between Ramsey Lewis and Nancy Wilson. It's primarily a Ramsey Lewis solo album with his regular band featuring a handful of songs featuring Nancy on vocals. After the generally more 70's styled production of ‘Les Fleurs’ it became time for Ramsey to start more heavily acknowledging the more electronic/synthesizer sounds of the mid 80's. For that he went to none other than Stanley Clarke who the same year was heading in the exact same direction with his ‘Time Exposure’. There are two numbers that really point to that concept better than anything else. Both are electro-funk/break dance type numbers that, while very modern for their time are still rooted strongly in 70's style jazz-funk arrangements and rhythms as opposed to more brittle hip-hop/electronica beats. "Ram" is the faster of the two tunes with some sparse vocals and Ramsey working his Chicago style soul-jazz piano anywhere he finds a place for it. "Breaker Beat”, being more midtempo is the funkier of the two and has some great 80's jazz-funk synthesizer swirls to boot. "Quiet Storm" has a more fluid Grover Washington Jr. style groove and relies heavy of Paul Jackson holding the trio rhythm section into place. "Closer Than Close" is a similarly styled vocal piece but the vocal is by the fine male singer Daryl Coley, not Nancy Wilson. She does show up on three elegantly produced and arranged urban R&B/pop/jazz tunes "Midnight Rendezvous","Slippin' Away”, “Never Wanna Say Goodnight" and the title song, all of which find a balance between the "retro nuevo" sound of Anita Baker and Will Downing later in the decade and what people like Patti Austin and James Ingram was doing around this same time. In that respect it captures urban contemporary vocal pop/jazz as it were in a state of transition. The final cut on the album is an original Ramsey composition "Song With Words [Remembering]” a swirling solo piano number that interestingly enough would've been just about perfect for Nancy's vocals but actually survives more than well on its own without it. As a Nancy Wilson duet album this isn't particularly complete though all of her contributions are strong additions to the album. As it stands this is an excellent Ramsey Lewis album and one of his very finest of the period. ~ Andre S. Grindle, Amazon.com.
Columbia Records, FC 39326,
1984
Sony Records, SICP 20298, 2011
Recorded & Mixed at Mad
Hatter Studio & Sound Castle Studio, Los Angeles, California
Musicians:
Ramsey Lewis - Concert Grand
Piano [Steinway]
Nancy Wilson - Vocals (#5),
Lead Vocals (#2,4,7)
Don Freeman - Keyboards
(#2,4,5,7,8)
Vassal Benford - Piano (#5,8)
Robert Brookins - Synthesizer
(#1,3,6)
Rory Kaplan - Synthesizer
(#7,8)
Paul Jackson Jr. - Guitar
(#1-8)
Stanley Clarke - Bass (#2),
Sitar (#5)
Freddie Washington - Bass
(#2,4,7)
John Robinson - Drums (#2,4)
Ricky Lawson - Drums (#7,8)
Daryl Coley - Vocals (#5),
Lead Vocals (#8)
Lynn Davis - Backing Vocals
(#2,4,7)
Josie James - Backing Vocals
(#4)
Frieda Woody, Backing Vocals
(#7)
Marcy Levy - Backing Vocals
(#7)
Celia Kitengeth - Narrator
(#1)
George Del Barrio - Arranger
[Strings]
Barbara Hunter, Bill Hughes,
Bonnie Douglas, Brenton Banks, Catherine Gotthoffer,
Christine Ermacoff, James Getzoff,, Janet Lakatos, Karen Jones, Murray Adler,
Norman Carr, Paul, Roland Kato, Ronald Folsom - Strings (#1,5)
Tracks:
1. Ram {Ramsey Lewis, Stanley
Clarke} (5:15)
2. Midnight Rendezvous {David
Roberts} (3:53)
3. Breaker Beat {Ramsey
Lewis, Stanley Clarke, Robert Brookins} (4:17)
4. Slippin' Away {David
Foster, David Paich, Leon Ware} (4:45)
5. The Two Of Us {Jeremy
Lubbock, Vassal Benford} (4:32)
6. Quiet Storm {Ramsey Lewis,
Stanley Clarke} (4:14)
7. Never Wanna Say Goodnight
{Ellen Schwartz, Franne Golde, Roger Bruno} (3:15)
8. Closer Than Close {Patrick
Henderson, Vassal Benford} (4:56)
9. Song Without Words
[Remembering] {Ramsey Lewis} (5:04)
Total Time: 40:14
Credits:
Producer - Stanley Clarke
Executive-Producer - Dr.
George Butler
Engineer - Erik Zobler
Engineer [Assistant] - Duncan
Aldrich, Gary Wagner, Jeff Vaughn, Mitch Gibson, Paul Erikson
Remixing Engineer - Don Hahn
Mastering - Bernie Grundman
Photography - Norman Seef
Design [Album] - John Berg
Liner Notes - Lawrence
Tanter, Yvonne Daniels
