Ronnie Laws - Mirror Town & Portrait of the Isley Brothers (1986/1998/2004)

:: TRACKLIST ::

Mirror Town [1986]
1 Come To Me 4:49
2 Misled 5:02
3 Tell Me 3:41
4 Mirror Town 4:50
5 Like A Crazy Side 4:09
6 Midnight Side 5:17
7 Cold Day 4:26
8 You Have To Be In Love 4:21
9 Take A Chance 3:50

Personnel: Ronnie Laws (vocals, soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, drums, background vocals); Debra Laws (vocals, background vocals); Eloise Laws (vocals); Patrick Kelly (guitar); Larry Dunn (Kurzwell synthesizer, Moog synthesizer); Paulinho Da Costa (percussion); George Shaw (programming); Luisa Justiz (background vocals).

Portrait of the Isley Brothers (Harvest For the World) [1998/2004]
1 Prelude To Harvest 2:32
2 Let Me Down Easy 6:14
3 At Your Best You Are Love 5:51
4 Who Loves You Better 5:03
5 Harvest For The World 3:34
6 People Of Today 5:15
7 You Still Feel The Need 4:52
8 So You Wanna Stay Down 4:27

Bass - Scott Cannady
Cover Photo - Andrew McNaughton
Engineer - F. Byron Clark
Engineer [Assistant] - Darren Mora
Guitar - Paul Jackson, Jr.
Mastering - Ron McMaster
Percussion - Munyungo Jackson
Producer, Saxphone - Ronnie Laws
Vocals - Debra Laws, Julia Waters, Oren Waters, Maxine Willard Waters

Like any other installment in Blue Note's Cover Series, Portrait of the Isley Brothers: Harvest for the World finds a contemporary jazz artist -- in this case, Ronnie Laws -- reinterpreting an entire pop or soul album as a jazz album. Laws decided to cover the Isley Brothers' popular 1976 album Harvest for the World, which contained the hits "Who Loves You Better" and "Harvest for the World," as well as "At Your Best (You Are Love)," which was later covered by Aaliyah. Since Laws' music always had pop and urban soul overtones, it wasn't a huge leap for him to rearrange these tunes as smooth jazz, but it is a surprise that he invests his performances with a lot of heart, passion, and conviction. He's assembled a solid backing band (guitarist Paul Jackson, Jr. shines, in particular), and he invites his daughter Michele to sing on "Let Me Down Easy" and his sister Debra to sing "Who Loves You Better," giving the album some needed variety in lead voices. Ultimately, Laws' Harvest for the World isn't much different stylistically than his average smooth jazz album, but it is one of his better efforts, since it has a batch of eight strong songs and uniformly enjoyable performances, including some of his better improvisations.