Norman Brown | Stay With Me

Norman Brown | Stay With Me
Peak Records
By Terrill Hanna

Norman Brown brings a fresh re-appealing stream of R&B, cool-out jazz that he is known to bring to the forefront of his musical career with an offering of tracks reminiscent of his previous titles. Slow flowed & often groove jammed, I found this CD to be far-fetched along the lines of most of his albums from around the way. In fact, this CD doesn’t have a cover! Its all original compositions that he & various others have penned – 10 tracks including the outro.

The Players:

— Norman Brown (Guitars & Scat Vocals/Vocals)
— Alex Al (Bass)
— Teddy Campbell (Drums)
— Darryl Munyungo Jackson (Percussion)
— Lloyd Tolbert (Keyboards & Drums)
— Herman Jackson (Keyboards)
— Prescott Ellison (Drums)
— Dave Hooper (Drums)
— Roberto Vally (Bass)
— Paulinho Da Costa (Percussion)
— Jeff Carruthers (Keyboards)
— Anthony Long (Saxophone)

And special guests: Kirk Whalum, Rick Braun, Sam Riney, Brian McKnight, & Nikkole.

The Tracks:

— Let’s Take A Ride
— You Keep Lifting Me Higher
— Pop’s Cool Groove
— It Ain’t Over BWB
— So In Love
— Stay With Me
— Soul Dance
— Every Little Thing
— A Quiet Place
— I Need You (Outro)

Highlights from this disc includes the track “It Ain’t Over BWB” spotlighting the triple team of Kirk Whalum & Rick Braun, alongside Norman, reviving the sound of their previous disc as BWB.; The slow balladering of Brian McKnight to the CD title “Stay With Me” & the signature seductive flow of “So In Love”. There are also some tracks produced by Smooth Jazz magnate Paul Brown, which should be identified by ears notice.

One surprise that I wished Mr. Brown would have kept going was the outro from track #10 – “I Need You”….the groove that follows afterwords was tight & it should’ve been labeled as track #11! It happens to be my favorite ‘track’ on the whole CD. Its just a matter of having to ‘rewind’ the deal over & over again to help keep that funky track flowing.

Overall, Norman doesn’t disappoint. Much of the disc is related to the previous albums. Again, NO COVERS – of course, whenever there is too many covers to a CD, it can take away the originality the artist should give us! That’s good enough for me!

Take Care…

Terrill J. Hanna
The Urban Music Scene