Note: this CD released using HDCD encoding.
Definitely of its time; Koz plays it safe and that's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I'm fairly confident that I've heard almost all these tracks on a jazz station at some point. Koz unapologetically goes straight for the candlelight dinner/champagne/roaring fire couples but I knew that going in. Even though he doesn't really need the help, Koz has plenty of guest artists on this album: Burt Bacharach, BeBe Winans, Luther Vandross, David Benoit, Montell Jordan, Chris Botti, Jonathan Butler, Marc Antoine, Nathan East, Jeff Lorber, and members of Take 6. Each track has its own producer depending on the guest artist, so it's amazing the album is as cohesive as it is. Not as good as Lucky Man, but a nice addition to the smooth jazz/instrumental pop shuffles on my office computer's playlists.
Album chart peaks:
- US Billboard Top 200: #190
- Billboard Contemporary Jazz: #3
- Billboard R&B: #67
It also fared well on the year end charts for 2000:
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| Billboard, December 30, 2000, p. YE-85 |
Tracks: My picks for this one include Together Again, Can't Let You Go, Love Is On The Way, and The Bright Side. The only tracks to skip are the lackluster Know You By Heart and the below average covers of The Dance and Wham's Careless Whisper featuring Montell Jordan (but I can't really blame Koz for wanting to record that famous sax lick). The track where Koz almost stretches out and varies his formula slightly is the brief Cuban Hideaway, which features multiple sax overdubs over an Afro-Cuban-lite groove.
Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None
Previously revisited for the blog:
December Makes Me Feel This Way (1997)
Lucky Man (1993)
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