December 17, 2024

Bob Baldwin Bob Baldwin
BobBaldwin.Com
(City Sketches – 2000)
by S.H. Watkins, Sr.

Funky, Jazzy, Mellow, Bob Baldwin’s new CD covers all of the bases and covers them well. Featuring the likes of Marion Meadows, Gerald Albright, Tom Browne, Chuck Loeb, Eric Essix and Dean James, you would expect it to be good, and this all-star lineup comes through with flying colors! From the first track, a sweet remake of the Dionne Warwick classic ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’, you know it’s gonna smoke all the way through. The high-energy ‘Funkin For Jamaica’ (a Tom Browne tune) featuring the vocals of Tonni Smith is as hot as the original and features better personnel!

Other cuts like “eSmooth”, “Yeah, Baby”, and “Westchester Dreamin” add to the melodic mixture. His distinctive piano playing is very notable on “If You Insist” as he does his best impression of what legends like Ramsey Lewis, David Benoit and Bob James set in stone. Baldwin doesn’t pound out a song, it flows from his fingertips.

But no wonder, Bob Baldwin was rubbing elbows with the likes of Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock, Earth, Wind & Fire, Marvin Gaye, Tramaine Hawkins and Miles…..all before he was 10 years old thanks to his father, Robert Baldwin, Sr. who is also an accomplished jazz pianist.

This is a smoking album and should be in you permanent music collection. It will sound as good ten years from now as it does now, and that’s pretty darn good!

Be sure to visit the Bob Baldwin Web Site for more information and to hear SAMPLES of this fantastic release.

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