Paul brown must the “Babyface of jazz”, well that what he is going to called after producing – Peter White’s new masterpiece CD  “Playing Favorites”. “Playing Favorites” is no doubt the smoothest cd out, from the first track to the last; this cd just flows in all the right direction. Starting out with the classic, well they’re all classics, but it’s a new kind of classic redefined with the smooth guitar playing of Peter White.

The classic song “What does it take (to win your love)” starts this cd outright with a nice laidback mid-tempo beat, Peter grooves all the way through this song, with his multi-technique. Playing, it sounds like he’s playing the rhythm and lead separately.The Burt Bacharach and Hal David song “The Look Of Love” never sounded so good and played with such passion, 1/3 of the seawind horns Jerry hey puts this song in the mood

In which the flugel horn compliments the song.Isaac Hayes wrote this song for Dionne Warwick about a 3 decades ago and there have been numerous covers of this song, but this is the smoothest I’ve ever heard it, with saxman Boney James guesting, he puts down a nice laidback solo, that is just right and peter passionately playing the melody.

When I was growing up I heard a rumor stating that if you wanted to be a sax player, it was require by law to learn this song in every key. I am talking about the classic Grover Washington song “Mister Magic”. Not many artists can pull off a cover of this song. Peter and guest Bob James make this song a real delight to listen to and Dave Camp playing the vamp on flute.

Jonathan Butler sing the chorus on this song, in turn there are only four instruments on this song, but it sounds like 6 or seven people. This is nice and smooth. “Crazy Love”, “Sunny”, and “Hit The Road Jack”, are nice well crafted songs and peter plays them all with a enthusiastic feeling, on “hit the road jack peter sings on the track and it was not recorded in the studio.

At first I did not recognize this song until Peter started playing the melody, and I was like singing along with him. “For the love of you” has been recorded so many times but Peter puts a fresh new coat of groove to it. This is headbopping music, cause it just flows all the way through it.

“You are my everything” is another classic that is real nice and smooth, with help from Richard Elliot and Jeffery Osborne, Peter takes us back to seventies, when this was first

recorded, and brings that memory back to the present.And finally the classic Daryl hall song “One on One” from one of the earlier albums. This is nicely laid out and with my favorite trumpet player Rick Braun laying down nice!

Solo to this song is will be a radio staple.

Either your laying around the house, having guests over for a drink and dinner, getting romantic or just cruising around town this is the perfect cd for that and every occasion.

Marvin Dickey

The Urban Music Scene