Street Life

Updated jazz sound for the 70s quiet storm/R&B vibes. Each song sounded very similar to each other.

Well, I love sax so I enjoyed this. Wish there was a bit more to it on the whole. Had some great moments but never really felt like it came to a point of impact.

I enjoyed!

Meh? Some interesting things in here, but I was really bored.

Title track is a banger but did it need to be 11 minutes? It doesn’t, but when the rest of the album is filler elevator music maybe it has to be.

Buy the 7” version ditch the rest.

2.83

So past the first song, the comparison of this record to hold music is totally fair. It really does feel like being on hold with a customer service line. This is a kind of jazz that is too accessible and it just kind of falls flat. There's nothing here to push you or, really, to even keep you interested. And I suppose that's the same thing you could say about music that plays when you're on hold with any given customer service department. Good musicians, but this album is just way too plain for me. 2.5/5

Background music for a grey Monday. Didn't make it any better 🤷

Too smooth and cheesy for me.

Funky jazz with solid production and playing, but unfortunately it’s rather generic, formulaic, inoffensive, and forgettable. It’s doesn’t really seem to do anything for me at all.

I mean, it’s obviously a 5.

For as much as I wish the rest of the tracks here had a vocal presence after the excellent “Street Life” (which I’m amazed I’ve never heard before), I think this album’s groove works fine enough without them. Go ahead and look at all the musicians that played on this album on Wikipedia, and do a deep dive into alllll of the albums they’ve had a hand in. It's unbelievably prolific. This feels like listening to the “We Are The World” of session jazz musicians.

I really don’t have anything else to say; the music speaks for itself. Even if you want to treat this as nothing more than call music or the stuff you hear when you’re watching a forecast on the Weather Channel, it’s the fucking best call music I’ve ever heard & the smoothest jazz to watch a weather radar to. 40 minutes of absolutely groovy bliss, and one of the best jazz fusion albums this list has given us; one hell of a feat given that we’re 613 days into this. A spectacular album.

Jazz-ish, but like smooth jazz that plays on the radio. Nice, pleasant to the ear, but nothing extraordinary.

I enjoyed this for the most part. Moved kinda slow, but didn't cross into boring territory at all. 3.5/5

3.5 Smoooth

Some say this is just generic elevator/call hold music, I say it's more like the music The Weather Channel used for Weather on the 1s, todays high will be 94° with a 6mph wind coming from the north

Amazing first track. Rest blends into muzakky background noise

I feared the worst on the album opener until the vocal’s kicked in and lifted it to become a really strong groove of a tune…..but then it refused to end.
Track 2 sounds like the theme to an American tv show from the 70/80s snd just lacks the ‘filmed before a live studio audience’ announcement.
Unfortunately that the highlights as the album continues into not unpleasant forgetableness

The album version of Street Life (the song) does not need to be 11 minutes long. The single version of Street Life (the song) clocks in at nearer 4 minutes and is excellent. Too much of a good thing.

As for the rest of the album, I listened to it on a warm but breezy walk to work and something about the sun and the fact it's a good walking tempo meant I really enjoyed it. Weirdly though, I listened to it again after work and was far less enthusiastic.

So where that leaves me is at is wanting a 2.5, but being forced into giving a:

2/5

Side note: Amazon Music described The Crusaders as playing "hard bop" which is a frankly excellent genre name.

Street Life is an absolute banger. It's a shame the rest of the album is devoid of vocals, because they clearly have it. That said, the rest of the album is a chilled and groovy time.

3.5 rounded down.

For real, the inclusion of this album makes me need to read how the author of the list made his choices. Everybody must listen to elevator music before they die? I suppose it is a genre…