Richard Elliot - On The Town (1991)

Richard Elliot is the Michael Bolton of the saxophone -- an instrumentalist whose knee-jerk pop/R&B solos are, like Bolton's singing, consistently formulaic, contrived and vacuous. Even by the low standards of NAC and smooth jazz radio, On the Town is dreadful. Such homogenized, cliché-ridden Muzak as "By My Side" and "Into the Light" is bloodless and devoid of soul, and on funk-influenced tracks like "Stiletto Heels" and the title song, the robotic Elliot fails to express any honest emotion. But the CD's worst embarrassment of all is a saccharine and downright insulting cover of "Over for Rainbow" (Howard Arlen's classic from The Wizard of Oz). For jazz, pop and R&B fans alike, On the Town is among the many Elliot albums to avoid. ~ Alex Henderson