Bob Baldwin | "Henna"

Bob Baldwin s 31st offering is a natural feeling. The beauty of our earth produces so many great and prosperous things. In fact, people have actually lived off of the virtues of this beautiful earth, says the native New Yorker. Bob s latest has layers of drums, percussion and his own organic keyboard and piano elements of the 1970 s closes the deal. Tracks 1-6 feature his NY-based band of 30 years with Dave Anderson (bass), Tony Lewis (drums), and Café Da Silva (percussion). 

The album includes the previously-released but newly mixed Club Life , which features over 10 solos on one track, with Tom Browne, Marion Meadows, Lori Williams, Ragan Whiteside, Oli Silk, U-Nam, Nils, Brooke Alford, Walter Beasley, Rohn Lawrence, Barry Danielian, Marcus Anderson, and Baldwin on production and track arrangement. It s a smooth jazz classic for the ages. Other songs include the aforementioned flutist Whiteside, who has blazed the Top-five Billboard charts four times since 2017. She appears on the first single Long Weekend (See You on Tuesday). The aforementioned DC vocalist, Lori Williams, lays her warm sultry tones on No Longer Lost, a Stevie-type throwback track with a simple pop edge seen through the jazz lens of Baldwin ala Quincy Jones. 

The album closes with another organic moment, as he s accompanied with his 10-year Atlanta-based crew of J-Fly (drums) and Tres Gilbert (bass). They offer their funky Southern tones to Fly Breeze and In The Moment , with the latter being an extended remix by Baldwin. I have a hard time trying to fade a good track, so we went with the flow and extended it, laughs Baldwin. He dedicates the vibe of the project to two of his favorite contemporary pianists, George Duke and Joe Sample, who both passed earlier this decade. He met both legends in his musical travels, and even spoke with them both just weeks before their untimely death. you must know that us Pianists/Keyboardists have to stick together. Sample and Duke were great artists and great elders of the genre. I learned a lot from the fruit they bear, says Baldwin. - City Sketches Records